Navigating through content items on a computing device

ABSTRACT

One or more embodiments of the disclosure include methods and systems that allows for improved user navigation within a group of content items. For example, a content navigation system can identify a content item within a group of content items to provide to a user in response to a user interaction. In some embodiments, the content navigation system can identify a content item to provide to the user based on one or more factors, such as a characteristic of a user interaction and a relevance of a content item. In addition, the content navigation system can strategically provide advertisement content items to a user by adjusting one or more factors with respect to advertisement content items.

BACKGROUND

1. Technical Field

One or more embodiments relate to systems and methods for navigatingcontent located on a computing device. More specifically, one or moreembodiments of the present invention relate to systems and methods ofnavigating within a group of content items to locate content.

2. Background and Relevant Art

Computing devices (e.g., computers, tablets, and smart phones) provideusers access to large amounts of content. Due to the large amount ofavailable content, there is often a need to provide users the ability tonavigate through content to experience content and/or locate specificcontent. Although there are a variety of conventional systems used tonavigate through content, many conventional systems include a scrollingfeature that allows a user to scroll through content items (e.g.,social-network posts in a newsfeed). For example, a user can provide auser interaction to cause a computing device to slowly browse throughcontent items, or alternatively, quickly scroll through a group ofcontent items (e.g., quickly skipping over one or more content items).

Conventional systems, however, have a number of disadvantages. Forexample, when a user scrolls through a group of content items,conventional systems often provide the user with a content item that hasno particular relevance or interest to the user. In particular, in manyconventional systems, the amount of scrolling through a group of contentitems is only related to a characteristic of a user interaction (e.g.,the distance or speed of a user's touch gesture). As a result, thecontent item a conventional system provides to the user in response to auser interaction is essentially random and of no particular interest tothe user. Conventional systems, therefore, often cause the user tofurther navigate in search of a content item in which the user isinterested. Navigating through content items of little interest to theuser can be time consuming and frustrating for a user.

Additionally, in response to a user interaction to navigate within agroup of content items, many conventional systems provide one or moreincomplete or “cutoff” items (e.g., a portion of a content item is notwithin a viewable area of a display). In particular, due to the amountof scrolling being based solely on a user interaction, the scrollingstopping point within a conventional system is not related to anyparticular content item. Therefore, the scrolling stopping point may belocated between two adjacent content items, causing one or more contentitems to be cutoff. Again, the user needs to further navigate to viewthe rest of the cutoff content item, which in turn diminishes the userexperience.

In addition to the user disadvantages described above, conventionalsystems often include disadvantages for a system provider. For example,conventional systems do not allow the system provider to effectivelycontrol which content item to provide to a user when the user scrollsthrough a group of content items. In particular, a system provider maydesire to provide advertisements that are interspersed between contentitems such that a user views one or more advertisements while navigatingthrough content items. Conventional systems, however, do not allowsystem providers the ability to optimize the presentation ofadvertisements to a user in a manner that satisfies the businessobjectives of the system provider, while at the same time maintains aquality user experience.

Accordingly, there are a number of considerations to be made inimproving user navigation through content located on a computing device.

SUMMARY

One or more embodiments described below provide benefits and/or solveone or more of the foregoing or other problems in the art with methodsand systems for improving user navigation through content items on acomputing device. For example, the principles described herein providemethods and systems that allow a user to easily and quickly navigate tocontent items that have an increased relevance to the user. In addition,the principles described herein provide methods and systems that allowcontent navigation system providers a greater ability to strategicallycontrol the presentation of advertisement content items to optimize theadvertisement capability of a content navigation system, while alsomaintaining a quality user experience.

In particular, the methods and systems disclosed herein provide relevantcontent items to a user when the user navigates within a group ofcontent items. In one or more example embodiments, a user provides auser interaction to a computing device to navigate within a group ofcontent items. The systems and methods described herein can use the userinteraction, in combination with content item characteristics and/orother information, to identify, and subsequently provide to the user, acontent item that is of particular relevance to the user (e.g., acontent item that is likely the most relevant to the user).

The methods and systems disclosed herein allow users to quickly andefficiently locate relevant content items within a group of contentitems, thereby minimizing the need for a user to further navigate insearch of a content item in which the user is interested. In addition,due to the ability of the content navigation system to identify aspecific content item to provide to a user, the content navigationsystem can cause the computing device to display the specific contentitem in an optimal viewing position on the computing device (e.g., thecontent item is not “cutoff”). Accordingly, the methods and systemsdescribed herein can increase the efficiency and ease of navigatingwithin a group of content items, which enhances the user experience ofthe content navigation system.

In addition, the methods and systems disclosed herein allow a contentnavigation system provider increased control over which content items auser views when navigating within a group of content items. For example,the methods and systems disclosed herein allow a content navigationsystem provider to seamlessly and strategically present an advertisementcontent item to a user. In particular, a content navigation systemprovider can present an advertisement content item to a user in a mannerthat optimizes the advertisement capabilities of a content navigationsystem, yet at the same time minimizes impact on the user experience.

Additional features and advantages will be set forth in the descriptionwhich follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or maybe learned by the practice of such exemplary embodiments. The featuresand advantages of such embodiments may be realized and obtained by meansof the instruments and combinations particularly pointed out in theappended claims. These and other features will become more fullyapparent from the following description and appended claims, or may belearned by the practice of such exemplary embodiments as set forthhereinafter.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In order to describe the manner in which the above recited and otheradvantages and features of one or more embodiments can be obtained, amore particular description will be rendered by reference to specificembodiments thereof that are illustrated in the accompanying drawings.It should be noted that the figures are not drawn to scale, and thatelements of similar structure or function are generally represented bylike reference numerals for illustrative purposes throughout thefigures. These drawings depict only typical embodiments, and are nottherefore considered to be limiting of its scope. Accordingly, variousembodiments will be described and explained with additional specificityand detail through the use of the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 illustrates a schematic diagram of a content navigation system inaccordance with one or more embodiments described herein;

FIGS. 2A-B illustrate an example computing device having a userinterface in accordance with one or more embodiments described herein;

FIGS. 3A-B illustrate a concept diagram of a content navigation systemin accordance with one or more embodiments described herein;

FIG. 4 illustrates an example of a data table for use within a contentnavigation system in accordance with one or more embodiments describedherein;

FIG. 5 illustrates a method of navigating through content items inaccordance with one or more embodiments described herein;

FIG. 6 illustrates another method of navigating through content items inaccordance with one or more embodiments described herein;

FIG. 7 illustrates a block diagram of a computing device in accordancewith one or more embodiments described herein;

FIG. 8 illustrates a network environment of a social-networking systemin accordance with one or more embodiments described herein; and

FIG. 9 illustrates a social graph in accordance with one or moreembodiments described herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Embodiments disclosed herein provide benefits and/or solve one or moreof the abovementioned or other problems in the art with a contentnavigation system that improves navigation within a group of contentitems. In particular, one or more embodiments include a contentnavigation system that allows a user to easily and quickly navigate tocontent items relevant to a user from among a group of content items. Inaddition, one or more embodiments can provide a content navigationsystem that offers content navigation system providers increased controlover advertisement capabilities of the content navigation system, whilealso maintaining a quality user experience.

In particular, one or more embodiments of a content navigation systemprovide a user the ability to quickly and efficiently navigate through alarge number of content items (e.g., scroll through a group of contentitems) and locate a content item that is relevant to the user (e.g., thecontent navigation system provides a relevant content item to a user ata stopping point of the scroll). For instance, the user may exhibit avarying degree of interest for each content item within a group ofcontent items. Therefore, when a user is navigating within a group ofcontent items, the content navigation system can account for userinterest to identify a relevant content item to provide to the user.

Example embodiments of a content navigation system can use a variety ofdata and/or functions to identify and provide a content item that isrelevant to the user. In one or more embodiments, the content navigationsystem can detect or determine one or more user interactioncharacteristics of a user interaction. The content navigation system canuse the one or more user interactions characteristics in the process toidentify a relevant content item to provide to the user. For example,the content navigation system can use one or more user interactioncharacteristics to determine an initial scroll distance. In one or moreembodiments, the content navigation system uses the one or more userinteraction characteristics to identify a target content item. Forexample, a target item can represent a content item identified within agroup of content items based solely on the magnitude of one or more userinteraction characteristics.

In addition to the target content item, in one or more exampleembodiments, the content navigation system can identify or determine aproximity range relative to the target content item. For example, theproximity range can include a defined number of content items nearestthe target content item within a listing of content items. In otherwords, the content navigation system can use the proximity range toidentify a subset of content items within the group of content itemsthat correspond to one or more user interaction characteristics.

Furthermore, upon identifying content items within a proximity range,the content navigation system can analyze one or more characteristics orproperties of each content item within the proximity range. For example,the content navigation system can identify a relevance factor for thecontent items within the proximity range. A relevance factor cangenerally represents a predicted level of interest in a content item andbe based on various user preference and/or content item characteristics.Accordingly, the content navigation system can take into account theinterests of a user in identifying a content item to provide to the userin response to a user interaction to navigate through content items.

In addition to a relevance factor, in one or more embodiments, a contentnavigation system can identify or determine a proximity factor forcontent items based on each content item's proximity to a target contentitem. For example, the content navigation system can use the proximityfactor to favor content items located immediately adjacent to the targetcontent item, and disfavor content items located farther away from thetarget content item. In this manner, a content navigation system canseamlessly identify a relevant content item to provide to a user basedon a combination of a user interaction, content item relevance to theuser, and proximity to a target content item.

In addition to increasing the quality of the user experience byproviding content items of interest to a user, and as mentioned above, acontent navigation system can provide one or more advantages to contentnavigation system providers. For example, a content navigation systemcan allow a system provider to selectively favor or disfavor one or moretypes of content items to predictably control the presentation of one ormore types of content items in response to a user interaction. In one ormore embodiments, a the content navigation system can strategicallyfavor advertisement content items by assigning advertisement contentitems a high relevance factor that causes the content navigation systemto identify an advertisement content item to provide to the user inresponse to a user interaction. Moreover, the content navigation systemcan dynamically adjust the various factors used to identifyadvertisement content items to provide a balance between providing aquality user experience and meeting one or more business objectives ofthe content navigation system. The above, as well as additional featuresand benefits of one or more embodiments of the present invention will bedescribed below in more detail.

As used herein, “content item” refers generally to any data orinformation a computing device can present to a user. For example, acontent item can be included within a group of content items. Toillustrate, examples of a content item can include a social-network postwithin a social-network newsfeed, a contact in a contact list, or adigital image in a digital image gallery. A group of content item doesnot necessarily include the same or similar content items. For example,a group of content items can include a plurality of several differenttypes of content items. Additional examples of content items includedigital media, audio/music files, electronic documents, locationinformation, notifications, advertisements, and/or search results. Inaddition, a content item can be one of several types of electroniccommunication, including posts through a social-networking system, usercomments, user reviews/ratings, blog posts, posts to a website, instantmessages, picture messages, video messages, text messages or any othertype of content that facilitates the communication of electronic datafrom one user to another user.

For purposes of describing one or more embodiments disclosed herein,reference is often made to content items representing social-networkposts within a social-network newsfeed. A social-network post caninclude various types of information. For example, a social-network postcan include text, contacts, images (e.g., photographs), videos, locationinformation, and/or additional data information. To illustrate, asocial-network post can include a text portion, a digital photo, andlocation information of where the digital photo was taken.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example embodiment of a content navigation system100 (or simply “system 100”). In some embodiments, one or more computingdevices can implement the system 100. For example, one or more computingdevices described below in connection with FIG. 7 can implement thesystem 100. In particular, a computing device may perform one or moreoperations associated with the identification of a content item toprovide to a user in response to a user interaction, as disclosedherein.

As shown, the system 100 may include, but is not limited to, acommunication manager 102, a user interface provider 104, a userinteraction detector 106, a content item manager 108, and a storagemanager 110 having content item data 112. In general, the communicationmanager 102 can receive and send data associated with content items. Theuser interface provider 104 can provide, manage, and/or control agraphical user interface (or simply “user interface”). The userinteraction detector 106 can detect one or more user interactions andprovide input data to the content item manager 108. The content itemmanager 108 can facilitate the identification of content items toprovide to a user in response to a user interaction. The storage manager110 can store and retrieve data, such as content item data 112.

As shown in FIG. 1, the system 100 can include a communication manager102. The communication manager 102 can facilitate receiving and sendingdata to and from the system 100. For example, communication manager 102can facilitate receiving and sending content items. In one or moreembodiments, the communication manager 102 can receive a content itemfrom a system provider through one or more communication channels usingan appropriate communication protocol, format the content item in anynecessary format, and provide the content item to the user interfaceprovider 104, as described herein.

As mentioned above, the system 100 can include a user interface provider104 as shown in FIG. 1. The user interface provider 104 can provide,manage, and/or control a user interface that allows a user to navigatethrough content items within a group of content items using the system100. For example, the user interface provider 104 can provide a userinterface that allows a user to navigate through social-network postswithin a social-network news feed. Although, and as described above, theuser interface provider 104 can provide a user interface that allows auser to navigate through all types of content items.

Notwithstanding the type of content items associated with a userinterface, the user interface provider 104 can cause a computing deviceto provide a user interface with which a user can interact. For example,the user interface provider 104 can cause a touch screen associated witha computing device to display graphical objects that enable viewing andnavigating within a group of content items. In particular, a user canprovide a user interaction directed at the user interface, or at the oneor more graphical objects, displayed on the touch screen to navigatewithin a group of content items. Alternatively, the user interfaceprovider 104 can cause another display device, such as a monitor todisplay a user interface to a user.

Depending on the type of content item, among other considerations, theuser interface provider 104 can provide a user interface thatfacilitates the display of content items in an arrangement that allows auser to easily navigate through the content items. In particular, theuser interface provider 104 can arrange content items in a listarrangement (e.g., an array). Alternatively, the user interface provider104 can arrange content items in a grid arrangement (e.g., a matrix).Further, the user interface provider 104 can provide content items inany arrangement suitable for a particular content item application. Inaddition, the user interface provider 104 can loop content items, suchthat the user interface provider 104 displays the first content item andthe last content item in a group of content items adjacent to each otherwhen a user is navigating through the group of content items.

Regardless of the arrangement of the content items, the user interfaceprovider 104 can provide the ability for a user to select one or morecontent items, which can provide additional functionality with respectto the selected content item. For instance, in a social-network post,upon a user selecting a content item (e.g., by way of a tap gesture),the user interface provider 104 can expand the content item, showcomments associated with the content item, allow the user to comment onthe content item, rate the content item, or provide the user withadditional content associated with the content item (e.g., open awebpage or application linked within the content item). As an additionalexample, in the instance that the content item is a music file, upon auser selecting the content item, the user interface provider 104 canplay the music file, or play a sample of the music file. Other examplesexist, as one will appreciate, depending on type of content item.

As mentioned above, and as FIG. 1 illustrates, the system 100 furthercan include a user interaction detector 106. In general, the userinteraction detector 106 can detect, receive, and/or facilitate userinteractions in any suitable manner. In some example embodiments, theuser interaction detector 106 detects one or more user interactions withrespect to the user interface, and in response to the user interaction,can provide input data corresponding to the user interaction to thecontent item manager 108.

As referred to herein, “input data” is data that corresponds with asingle user interaction, or combination of user interactions, providedby a user by way of one or more input devices. For example, the userinteraction detector 106 can detect one or more user interactions from akeyboard, mouse, touch screen, or any other input device. In the eventthat the input device is a touch screen, the user interaction detector106 can detect one or more a touch gestures that a user provides by wayof the touch screen (e.g., swipe gestures, tap gestures, pinch gestures,or reverse pinch gestures). In some embodiments, a user may provide atouch gesture in relation to and/or directed at one or more contentitems or elements of a user interface presented on the touch screen, asdescribed herein.

In addition to detecting a user interaction, the user interactiondetector 106 can identify user interaction characteristics, such as adirection, distance, and/or speed of a touch gesture. In one or moreembodiments, the user interaction detector 106 may use a coordinatesystem to identify characteristics corresponding to the userinteraction. For example, the user interaction detector 106 can receivedata corresponding to a touch gesture that begins at a startingcoordinate and finishes at an ending coordinate. The user interactiondetector 106 can measure the time duration of a touch gesture andcompare the starting coordinate to the ending coordinate to determinethe distance, direction, and/or speed of the touch gesture.

The user interaction detector 106 can provide input data to the system100 based on one or more user interaction characteristics. For instance,the user interaction detector 106 can provide input data to the contentitem manager 108, and in response, the content item manager 108 cancontrol one or more functions of the system 100. For example, system 100can use input data, alone or in combination with other data, to manage,control, and/or facilitate the use and navigation of a user interface.In particular, in response to the user interaction detector 106detecting one or more touch gestures, the system 100 can cause contentitems to scroll through a group of content items provided to the user bythe user interface, thereby allowing a user to navigate within a groupof content items, as will further be described below.

As FIG. 1 illustrates, and as mentioned above, the system 100 includes acontent item manager 108. The content item manager 108 can facilitatecontrol of content items within the user interface. In particular, thecontent item manager 108 can control which content items to provide tothe user interface provider 104 for display on a display device. Forexample, the content item manager 108 can receive input data from theuser interaction detector 106, and in response to the input data, thecontent item manager 108 can control one or more features within theuser interface. In particular, the content item manager 108 can controlwhich content item is provided to a user when the user provides one ormore user interactions to navigate through a group of content items.

One way in which the content item manager 108 controls navigationthrough content items is to identify a content item to provide to theuser when the user provides a user interaction indicating a desire tonavigate quickly within a group of content items. In particular, inresponse to a user providing a user interaction, the content itemmanager 108 can identify a content item to provide to the user interfaceprovider 104, which facilitates the display of the identified contentitem within a user interface. For example, and as will be explained ingreater detail below, the content item manager 108 can identify acontent item based on one or more of factors, such as user interactioncharacteristics associated with a user interaction, a relevance factor,a proximity factor, one or more thresholds, system provider data, orother information available to the content item manager 108. Each factoris described below in additional detail.

As described briefly above with respect to the user interaction detector106, the content item manager 108 can use, among other factors, one ormore user interaction characteristics as a factor to identify a contentitem in response to a user interaction. The user interaction detector106 can provide input data to the content item manager 108 that includesuser interaction characteristics, as described above. The content itemmanager 108 can use the input data to determine one or more userinteraction characteristics such as direction, distance, and/or speedwith respect to an initial position within a group of content items(e.g., with respect to a content item initially displayed within a userinterface). The content item manager 108, therefore, can use thedetermined user interaction characteristics as one or more factors toidentify a content item to provide to the user.

To illustrate, in one or more example embodiments, the content itemmanager 108 can determine a direction to navigate within a group ofcontent items using the input data. The content item manager 108 mayselect a content item based in part on the determined directionassociated with the user interaction. For example, the determineddirection may correspond with the user's desire to navigate, up, down,left, right, etc., with respect to an initial position within the groupof content items. In some embodiments, the direction can be based on thearrangement of the group of content items. For example, the content itemmanager 108 may limit the direction to navigate to only up and down fora group of content items having a vertical arrangement, such as in asocial-network newsfeed (e.g., see FIG. 2).

In addition to a direction of a user interaction, the content itemmanager 108 can use one or more user interaction characteristicsassociated with the distance and/or the speed of a user interaction asadditional factors to identify one or more content items. For example,the content item manager 108 can determine a number of content items tonavigate through (e.g., skip past) using the determined distance and/orspeed associated with the user interaction. Alternatively, the contentitem manager 108 can determine a position within a group of contentitems using the determined distance and/or speed associated with theuser interaction, as discussed below.

In one or more embodiments, the content item manager 108 can apply analgorithm to one or more user interaction characteristics to calculateone or more factors used in identifying a content item to provide to auser. For instance, the content item manager 108 can add or multiply afirst value associated with the determined distance with a second valueassociated with the determined speed to obtain a navigational value.Alternatively, the content item manager 108 can identify a navigationvalue by looking up the determined distance and/or speed in a lookuptable. Regardless of the algorithm or method used to determine anavigation value, the content item manager 108 can use a navigationalvalue as a factor to identify a content item to provide to the user.

Using one or more of the above discussed elements or techniques, thecontent item manager 108 can use the one or more user interactioncharacteristics as a factor in a variety of to identify a positionwithin a group of content items. In particular, the content item manager108 can identify a list position within a group of content items havinga list arrangement using one or more user interaction characteristics.For instance, the content item manager 108 can use the user interactioncharacteristics to identify a position that is x pages away from thepage currently being shown to the user on the user interface (where x isa non-negative integer).

Another way in which the content item manager 108 can determine aposition within a group of content items is to identify a target contentitem. The target content item, for example, can represent the positionwithin a group of content items to which other calculations and factorsare applied to eventually identify a content item to display to theuser. Using the principles described above, the content item manager 108may identify a target content item based on one or more user interactioncharacteristics. For instance, the content item manager 108 may identifya target content item based on the magnitude of a direction and adistance of a user interaction.

In some embodiments, the content item manager 108 may identify a targetcontent item based on the content item initially displayed within a userinterface at the time a user provides a user interaction. For example,the content item manager 108 can use the distance and speed of the userinteraction to identify a content item within the group of content itemsthat is x content items away from the content item initially displayedwithin a user interface (where x is a non-negative integer). One willappreciate that various other techniques can be used to identify aposition within a group of content items based on receiving a userinteraction.

As discussed above, the content item manager can use a proximity rangeas another factor in identifying a content item to provide to a user inresponse to a user interaction. For example, after identifying aposition (e.g., a target content item), the content item manager 108 candetermine a proximity range based on the identified position. In one ormore embodiments, the proximity range can include each content itemwithin a distance of x content items of an identified target contentitem (where x is a non-negative integer). For instance, the proximityrange can include the content items adjacent to the target content item,or alternatively, may include each content item within a range of tencontent items of the target content item. One will appreciate that theproximity range can include any number of content items depending on aparticular embodiment.

In some embodiments, the number of content items in the proximity range(e.g., a subset of content items within a group of content items) can bebased on one or more user interaction characteristics. For example, thecontent item manager 108 can increase the scope of the proximity rangebased on a user interaction characteristic, such as distance and/orspeed. For instance, the content item manager 108 can double or triplethe scope of the proximity range when the determined distance and/orspeed increases beyond a particular threshold, as described below.Alternatively, rather than determining the scope of the proximity rangeusing on one or more user interaction characteristics, one willappreciate that the scope of the proximity range can be fixed (e.g.,user preferences/system provider defined), or based on other factors.

In addition to using the proximity range as a factor, the content itemmanager 108 can also use a relevance factor associated with contentitems in the process of identifying a content item to provide to a user.The relevance factor can correspond to a predicted level of userinterest in a content item, which can be represented with a relevancevalue.

The content item manager 108 can determine the relevance factor for eachcontent item using various techniques and information. In one or moreembodiments, the content item manager 108 can base the relevance factoron information the system 100 obtains in connection with the user. Forexample, the user may rate a content item or indicate a preference for atype, group, or category of content items, which can influence therelevance factor for each content item. As another example, the contentitem manager 108 can base the relevance factor on the amount of time theuser spends viewing or interacting with each content item, or if theuser has not yet viewed a content item. Alternatively, or in addition,the system 100 can track one or more user actions (e.g., previouscontent item user selections or attributes of previously selectedcontent items) as a basis to determine a relevance factor for eachcontent item.

In addition to information associated with the user, one or moreembodiments can base a relevance factor on information associated with acontent item. In particular, the relevance factor can be based oncontent item popularity, recency, source, attributes, social trends,“likes,” comments, ratings, and/or other information associated with acontent item. For example, content items associated with a large numberof “likes” can be assigned a relevance factor that is higher thancontent items associated with a lower number of “likes.” The contentitem manager 108 can use any combination of information to determine therelevance factor of a particular content item.

The content item manager 108 can obtain the relevance factor for eachcontent item from one or more sources. For example, a system providercan send a relevance factor in connection with each content itemprovided to the system 100. When the system 100 receives content itemsalong with their corresponding relevance factors, the system 100 canemploy the storage manager 110 to store the relevance factorcorresponding to each content item as content item data 112. Afterdetermining a subset of content items (e.g., based on a proximityrange), the content item manager 108 can look up and apply thecorresponding relevance factors for each of the subset of content itemsto identify a content item to provide to a user.

Alternatively, the content item manager 108 can determine a relevancefactor for each content item. In particular, after identifying a subsetof content items (e.g., based on a proximity range), the content itemmanager can calculate a relevance factor for each of the subset ofcontent items. As an example, if the content items are social-networkposts, the content item manager 108 can score each social-network postaccording to content within the social-network posts or attributesassociated with each social-network post. One will appreciate that othermethods and approaches can be employed to determine a relevance factorfor content items.

In addition to identifying a content item based on a relevance factor,and as mentioned above, the content item manager 108 can also select acontent item based a proximity factor. The proximity factor can be avalue that favors content items located closer to an identified positionwithin a group of content items. For example, the proximity factorassociated with a content item can decrease as the proximity betweeneach content item and a target content item increases. For instance, theproximity factor can decrease linearly, logarithmically, exponentially,or in another manner, as will be appreciated. In one or moreembodiments, the content item manager 108 can set the proximity factorof each content item not within the proximity range to zero (0). Inother words, the proximity range can be defined as content items havinga proximity factor greater than zero (0).

As mentioned above, the content item manager 108 can also use one ormore user interaction thresholds associated with user interactioncharacteristics as a factor in identifying a content item to provide tothe user in response to a user interaction. For example, one or moreuser interaction thresholds can correspond to values (e.g., directionand/or magnitude) of the user interaction characteristics, such asminimum and maximum values associated with one or more user interactioncharacteristics. For instance, thresholds can include a minimum orbrowsing threshold, a middle or scrolling threshold, and/or a maximumthreshold.

In one or more embodiments, the content item manager 108 can usepredetermined user interaction thresholds. For example, a systemprovider or a user can define one or more predetermined user interactionthresholds. Alternatively, the content item manager 108 can use dynamicuser interaction thresholds. For example, the content item manager 108can set user interaction thresholds based on the number of content itemswithin the group of content items. As another example, the content itemmanager 108 can lower one or more user interaction thresholds when theuser provides a second user interaction while the content item manager108 is currently processing a first user interaction. In addition, thecontent item manager 108 can also use different user interactionthresholds based on the type of computing device on which the system 100operates. For example, the content item manager 108 can identify whichthreshold to use based on the display size of a computing device.

The content item manager 108 can determine if a user interactioncharacteristic meets or exceeds one or more user interaction thresholds.For example, the content item manager 108 can determine if a userinteraction characteristic (e.g., distance and/or speed) meets orexceeds the minimum or browsing threshold, the middle or scrollingthreshold, or the maximum threshold. For instance, when the userinteraction characteristic does not meet or exceed any user interactionthreshold, the content item manager 108 can cause no navigationalresponse to occur (e.g., no scrolling). However, if a user interactionmeets or exceeds the minimum or browsing threshold, the content itemmanager 108 can cause the content items to slowly scroll from onecontent item to the next content item in a user interface.

Furthermore, if the user interaction characteristic exceeds the middleor scrolling threshold, the content item manager 108 can quickly scrolla group of content items through a user interface. In other words, whenthe user interaction characteristic exceeds the middle or scrollingthreshold, the content item manager 108 uses a first method to identifya content item to display to a user. The first method may indicate thatthe user desires to quickly navigate through a group of content items,as described above. Also as described above, the first method can usedefined factors to identify a content item to provide to the user inresponse to the user interaction. For example, the content item manager108 can identify a content item to provide to the user based on userinteraction characteristics, the proximity factor, and the relevancefactor.

In addition, when the user interaction characteristic exceeds themaximum threshold, the content item manager 108 can use a second methodto identify a content item to display to a user. In one or moreembodiments, the second method, compared to the first method, mayindicate the user is less concerned about the content item to which theuser navigates so long as the content item manager 108 navigates throughat least a minimum number of content items. For example, the contentitem manager 108 can favor or disfavor one or more factors in the secondmethod compared to the first method to identify a content item.

To illustrate, for example, when the user interaction characteristicexceeds the maximum threshold, the content item manager 108 can giveless weight to the proximity factor, as the user is generally lessconcerned about which content item the content item manager 108identifies. In other words, when the user interaction characteristicexceeds the maximum threshold, the content item manager 108 can reduceor even eliminate the proximity factor. In this manner, the content itemmanager 108 can identify a content item within the subset of identifiedcontent items by favoring other factors, such as a relevance factor.

Alternatively, or additionally, when the user interaction characteristicexceeds the maximum threshold, the content item manager 108 can expandthe scope of the proximity range, as described above. Alternatively,when the user interaction characteristic exceeds the maximum threshold,the content item manager 108 can forgo identifying a target content itemand can identify any content item to provide to the user so long as thecontent item manager 108 skips over at least a minimum number of contentitems.

As described above, the content item manager 108 can use system providerdata as a factor in identifying a content item to provide to a user inresponse to a user interaction to quickly navigate within a group ofcontent items. For example, as described previously, the system providermay desire to present advertisement content items to a user as the usernavigates through a group of content items. Accordingly, the contentitem manager 108 can identify an advertisement content item to provideto the user. For example, the content item manager 108 can strategicallyand dynamically favor advertisement content items over other factorswhen identifying a content item to provide to a user in response to auser interaction.

In one or more embodiments, for example, the content item manager 108may override identifying a content item based on relevance and insteadselect an advertisement content item to display to the user.Alternatively, the content item manager 108 can select an advertisementcontent item when the user interaction characteristic exceeds themaximum threshold. In addition, or in the alternative, the content itemmanager 108 can select an advertisement content item when theadvertisement content item is within the proximity range. Thus, if thecontent item manager 108 expands the scope of the proximity range whenthe user interaction characteristic exceeds the maximum threshold, thereis a greater chance that the content item manager 108 will select anadvertisement content item.

In some embodiments, the content item manager 108 can employ a rollingweight to determine if the content item manager 108 should identify anadvertisement content item. For example, the content item manager 108can increase the relevance of, or the weight given to, eachadvertisement content item until an advertisement content item isidentified. When an advertisement content item is identified, thecontent item manager 108 can decrease or reset the relevance or weightfor each advertisement content item. In this manner, the content itemmanager 108 optimizes the advertisement capabilities of a system 100,yet at the same time does not diminish the user experience byoverloading the user with an advertisement each time the user requeststo navigate though a group of content items.

In one or more embodiments, the content item manager 108 can identify acontent item to provide to the user in response to a user interactionbased on user preference. For example, each time the user provides auser interaction indicating a desire to navigate within a group ofcontent items, the content item manager 108 can select the next unreadcontent item. Alternatively or additionally, the content item manager108 can select user-defined content items. For example, in the contextof a social-network, the user can designate a list of contact or friendsas favorites. Therefore, each time the user requests to navigate withina group of content items, the content item manager 108 can select thenext content item corresponding to a favorite contact.

As discussed above, the system 100 can include a storage module 110, asFIG. 1 illustrates. Storage module 110 may maintain content item data112 representative of data used in connection with content items. Forexample, in the case of the system 100 determining a relevance factorfor each content item, the storage manager 110 can store the relevancefactor as content item data 112. The storage manager 110 may also storeother data that the system 100 uses in connection with navigatingthrough a group of content items.

Each of the components 102-110 of the system 100 may be in communicationwith one another using any suitable communication technologies. It willbe recognized that although components 102-110 are shown to be separatein FIG. 1, any of components 102-110 may be combined into fewercomponents, such as into a single facility or module, or divided intomore components as may serve a particular embodiment.

The components 102-110 can comprise software, hardware, or both. Forexample, the components 102-110 can comprise one or more instructionsstored on a computer-readable storage medium and executable byprocessors of one or more computing devices. When executed by the one ormore processors, the computer-executable instructions of the system 100can cause one or more computing device(s) to perform the methodsdescribed herein. Alternatively, the components 102-110 can comprisehardware, such as a special purpose processing device to perform acertain function or group of functions. Additionally or alternatively,the components 102-110 can comprise a combination of computer-executableinstructions and hardware.

FIG. 2A illustrates an example embodiment of a computing device 200 thatcan implement system 100. For example, FIG. 2A illustrates the computingdevice 200 can be a mobile device, such as a mobile phone (e.g., asmartphone). However, in additional or alternative examples, system 100may be implemented by any other suitable computing device, such as, butnot limited to, a tablet device, a handheld device, a laptop or desktopcomputer, a personal-digital assistant device, and/or any other suitablecomputing device configured to perform one or more of the processesand/or operations described herein. As illustrated in FIG. 2A, computingdevice 200 may include and/or be associated with a touch screen 202 byway of which a user interface may be presented and/or by way of which auser interaction may be received and/or detected. Additionally oralternatively, computing device 200 may include any other suitable inputdevice (e.g., a keypad, one or more input buttons).

In addition to example characteristics of computing device 200, FIGS.2A-2B illustrate example embodiments of a user interface that allows auser to navigate through a group of content items using the principlesdescribed herein. As illustrated in FIG. 2A, the touch screen 202 canpresent a user interface that includes a content widow 204. In general,the content widow 204 is the portion of the user interface thatfacilitates the display of one or more content items 206 within thegroup of content items.

As shown in FIG. 2A, the content window 204 can display multiple contentitems 206. For example, the user interface provider 104 can arrangecontent items 206 in a vertical list arrangement. In one or moreembodiments, the content window 204 can include multiple content items206, with each content item 206 visually distinguished from othercontent items 206, as illustrated in FIG. 2A-2B. Alternatively, thecontent window 204 can include a single content item 206. For example,the content window 204 can display a single content item 206 spanningthe entire content window 204. Alternatively, content in the contentitem 206 can expand beyond the content window 204 such that a user mustprovide a user interaction to view the remaining content in the contentitem 206.

In one or more embodiments, the user interface provider 104 can truncatethe content within a content item 206 so that the content window 204 isable to display multiple content items 206. For example, the userinterface provider 104 can format each content item 206 to have definedgraphical dimensions, truncating any content that does not fit withinthe defined graphical dimensions. A user can access the truncatedcontent in the content item 206 through a user interaction. For example,a user can select an option to view the truncated content (e.g., by wayof a tap gesture with respect to a content item 206).

Although FIGS. 2A-2B indicate a single column of content items 206within the content window 204, in alternative embodiments, the userinterface provider 104 can provide multiple columns of content items 206within the content window 204. For example, the user interface provider104 can provide two columns of content items 206 in a content listarrangement (e.g., a two column listing of digital photos). In one ormore embodiments, a user can define the arrangement of the content items206 within content window 204 with one or more user setting preferences.

When navigating through content items 206, the system can identify andposition a content item 206 such that the identified content item is notcutoff. In other words, after the system 100 identifies a content itemto display to the user, the system 100 positions the content item in thecontent window 204 such that the identified content item is not cutoff.More specifically, the system 100 can position the top of the contentitem at the top of the content window 204 (as illustrated in FIG. 2Awith the content item labeled “Mom”).

Content items 206 can relate to a variety of topics. For example,content items 206 can correspond to other users, people, interests,sports, entertainment, hobbies, groups, locations, etc. In addition,content items 206 can correspond to advertisements and recommendations.For instance, a content item 206 can correspond to an advertisement forone or more products or services associated with the system provider ora third party. As another example, the system 100 may providerecommended content items 206 to a user, such as recommending the userconnect with another user.

Each content item 206 can include a variety of content. For example,content items 206 generally include text, images, links, etc. Inparticular, and as shown in FIG. 2A, content items 206 can include alabel 208 identifying the source of the content item 206. For example,the label may refer to a person, company, group, or other entity. Thecontent item 206 can also include an image 210 associated with thesource of the content item, as illustrated in FIG. 2A. For example, theimage 210 may be a picture of the person, or logo of the company,associated with the content item 206. In addition, the content item 206can include information corresponding to the content item 206, such asan indication of when the content item 206 was created, updated, orreceived at the computing device 200.

Depending on a particular content item type, a content item 206 caninclude content that allows for user interaction, for example, by usingthe touch screen 202. For example, the content item 206 can includeselectable options 212 that allow a user to interact with a content item206. For example, FIG. 2A illustrates that the selectable options 212can allow a user to comment on the content item 206, share the contentitem 206, or rate (e.g., indicate a “like”) the content item 206, etc.Additionally, the content item 206 can allow a user to access additionalcontent. For example, a content item 206 can provide a link to awebsite, application, another group or content items, a contact list,etc.

In addition to displaying the content items 206, the touch screen 202can also allow a user to provide one or more user interactions tonavigate through content items 206. For example, a user can provide atouch gesture indicating a desire to navigate within a group of contentitems. In particular, and as illustrated in FIG. 2B, a user can use afinger 212 to provide a user interaction indicating a desire to scrollup or down (as indicated by the arrows shown in FIG. 2B). In particular,the user can provide a touch gesture by swiping a finger 212 from onepoint on the touch screen 202 to a second point on a touch screen 202.Although FIG. 2A-2B illustrates a vertical arrangement with verticalscrolling, in one or more alternative embodiments, the system 100 canprovide a horizontal arrangement with vertical scrolling, e.g., in theevent the user rotates the computing device 200 ninety degrees.

In some embodiments, the system 100 can detect a variety of userinteractions that correspond to a variety of functions. For example, theuser can use a touch gesture that involves multiple fingers. As anotherexample, the user can use a touch gesture that includes swiping andholding a user's finger on the touch screen 202. In some instances, theuser can draw a symbol on the touch screen (e.g., a letter, number,etc.) to provide a user interaction. Further, the user can use a userinteraction that does not require interaction with the touch screen 202.For example, the user can use eye movement (e.g., eye tracking) orphysically changing the position of the computing device (e.g., tiltinga mobile phone) to provide a user interaction.

In response to the various types of user interactions, the system 100can use different methods to identify content items. For example, when auser provides a vertical swipe touch gesture with one finger that meetsa threshold, the system 100 may identify a content item to provide tothe user based primarily on relevance factors. Then, when a userprovides a touch gesture with two fingers, the system 100 may identify acontent item based on a different factor, such as if a content item ismarked as unread. In other words, the user can provide a one-fingerswipe when desiring to navigate between relevant content items, and theuser can provide a two-finger swipe when desiring to navigate betweenunread content items.

One will appreciate that additional touch gestures can generatedifferent responses from the system. In one or more embodiments, theuser may provide a second user interaction before the system 100 hasfully responded to the first user interaction. For example, if the userprovides a tap gesture while the system 100 is currently navigatingbetween content items in the group of content items (e.g., currentlyscrolling), the system 100 may cancel the content item identificationprocess and current scrolling and provide the user with the content itemthe user selected via the tap gesture. The system 100 can also adjustthe position of the content item the user selected using the tap gestureso that the beginning of the content item is not cutoff from the user'sview. In other words, even when a user provides a touch gesturecancelling a previous navigational request, the system 100 can providethe user with a content item that does not require further user input bythe user to view the content item provided to the user.

Alternatively, if the user provides a user interaction while the system100 is currently navigating (e.g., scrolling) between content items inthe group of content items, the system 100 can automatically jump to thecontent item identified based on a previous user interaction, ratherthan continuing to navigate to the identified content item. For example,using the principles described herein, the system 100 may identify acontent item to provide to the user in response to a first userinteraction (e.g., a vertical swipe gesture), and scroll towards theidentified content item. The user can then provide a second userinteraction (e.g., a tap gesture), and in response the system 100 canjump to the identified content item within the group of content items206 to quickly provide the identified content item to the user.

As another example, the user may provide two user interactions (e.g.,two vertical swipe gestures) in close succession. In response to thefirst user interaction, the system 100 can identify a content item toprovide to the user as described above. In response to the second userinteraction, the system 100 can update the identified content item, orin other words, the system 100 can identify a subsequent content itembased on the characteristics of the second user interaction using one ormore of the principles described herein. Alternatively, the system 100can jump to the first or last content item in a group of content itemsin response to multiple user interactions provided in quick succession.

In some embodiments, the system 100 may identify a content item toprovide to the user in response to a future user interaction. Forexample, the system 100 can identify multiple content items to provideto the user in response to a future user interaction for each directionand threshold range. For instance, if the system 100 determines, basedon user interaction characteristics (e.g., direction, distance and/orspeed), that a user interaction characteristic exceeds the middle orscrolling threshold in a particular direction, the system 100 mayprovide a first pre-identified content item to the user in response tothe user interaction. Similarly, if the system 100 determines that auser interaction characteristic exceeds the maximum user interactionthreshold in a particular direction, the system 100 may provide a secondpre-identified content item to the user in response to the userinteraction. For example, the system 100 may pre-identify anadvertisement content item to provide to the user if the usersubsequently provides a user interaction characteristic that exceeds themaximum threshold.

FIGS. 3A-3B illustrate a conceptual diagram that can represent one ormore embodiments of the system. In particular, FIGS. 3A-3B show a groupof content items 302 that includes multiple content items (e.g., ContentItem A through content item n) in a horizontal arrangement (e.g., ahorizontal gallery). As further illustrated in FIG. 3B, the system 100can display one or more content items within a content window 304. Forexample, in one or more embodiments, the content window 304 cancorrespond to the content window 204 discussed above in connection withFIGS. 2A-2B. For instance, the content window 304 can facilitate thedisplay of one or more content items within the group of content items302 to a user on a mobile device.

Generally, and as discussed above, a user can navigate though the groupof content items 302 by, for example, providing a user interaction thatcauses the system 100 to move (e.g., scroll) the content items withinthe group of content items through the content window 304. For example,and as illustrated in FIG. 3A, system 100 can initially provide ContentItem A and Content Item B within the content window 304. With ContentItem A and Content Item B within the content widow 304, the user canprovide a user interaction 306. For example, and as illustrated in FIG.3A, the user can provide a user interaction 306 that causes the group ofcontent items to scroll to the left. Using one or more of the methodsdescribed herein, the system 100 can identify a content item to provideto the user in response to the user interaction 306, and move (e.g.,scroll) the group of content left until arriving at the identifiedcontent item. For instance, the system can identify and provide ContentItem E in the content window 304, as shown in FIG. 3B.

To illustrate additional details of the system 100, reference will befurther made to FIGS. 3A-3B. In particular, with the user interfaceprovider 104 providing Content Item A and Content Item B within contentwindow 304, as shown in FIG. 3A, a user may provide a user interaction306. The user interaction detector 106 can detect the user interaction306 and provide user input data to the content item manager 108. Afterreceiving the user input data, the content item manager 108 candetermine one or more user interaction characteristics based on the userinput data.

The content item manager 108 can use the one or more user interactioncharacteristics to identify a target content item 308. For example, asillustrated in FIG. 3A, the content item manager 108 can identifyContent Item G as the target content item 308 based on the one or moreuser interaction characteristics. After identifying Content Item G asthe target content item 308, content item manager 108 can furtheridentify a subset of content items within a proximity range 310. Forexample, and as illustrated in FIG. 3A, the content manager 108 canidentify Content Item D through Content Item J. Alternatively, thetarget content item 308 may not be in the middle of the proximity range310. For example, the proximity range 310 can include the target contentitem 308 (e.g., Content Item G) and Content Items C-F. As anotherexample, the proximity range 310 can span from the content item in thecontent window 304 (e.g., Content Item A) to the target content item 308(e.g., Content Item G).

After identifying the subset of content items, content item manager 108can use one or more factors associated with each content item within thesubgroup of content items to identify a content item to provide withinthe content window 304. For example, the content item manager 108 canidentify or determine a relevance factor for each content item withinthe subset of content items. In particular, the content item manager 108can identify a relevance factor for each of Content Items D-J. Asdiscussed in detail above, the relevance factor for each content itemcan be based on one or more content item characteristics, including butnot limited to, recency, popularity, source, topic, contents, comments,views, or any other characteristic associated with each content item,depending on the type of content item. To illustrate, content itemmanager 108 can determine that Content Item D through Content Item Jhave relevance factors based on a predicted interest of the user in eachof the content items as indicated in FIG. 4.

In addition to the relevance factor, and as explained in detail above,the content item manager 108 can also identify a proximity factorassociated with each of the content items within the subgroup of contentitems. As explained above, the proximity factor can correspond to theproximity of each content item within the proximity range 310 to thetarget content item 308. To illustrate, content item manager 108 candetermine that Content Item D through Content Item J have the proximityfactors shown in FIG. 4 based on the proximity of each content items tothe target content item 308, or in this example, Content Item G. Asillustrated in FIG. 4, the proximity factors can relate linearly to theproximity of each content item relative to the target content item 308.In alternative embodiments, the proximity factors can relateexponentially relative to the target content item 308.

After determining the proximity factors, the content item manager 108can then use the identified or determined factors to identify a contentitem to provide within the content window 304. In particular, contentitem manager 108 can use one or more algorithms in combination with thefactors to identify a content item. To illustrate, the content itemmanager 108 may simply sum the relevance factor value and the proximityfactor value for each of the content items within the subgroup todetermine a score. The content item manager 108 can then identify thecontent item within the subgroup of content items that has the highestscore. To illustrate, using the relevance factor and proximity factorsshown above, Content Item E has the highest score compared to ContentItem D through Content Item J.

Subsequent to identifying the content item with the highest score, thecontent item manager 108 can direct the user interface provider 104 toprovide the content item having the highest score within the contentwindow 304. To illustrate, the content item manager 108 directs the userinterface provider 104 to provide Content Item E within the contentwindow 304. Upon receiving the direction from the content item manger108 to provide Content Item E within the content window 304, the userinterface provider 104 can make one or more adjustments while navigating(e.g., scrolling) through the content items to cause the navigating tostop to display Content Item E within the user window 304. In one ormore embodiments, the adjustments are imperceptible to the user.

For example, to provide Content Item E within the content window 304,the user interface can make one or more adjustments to a scrollingcontrol. In one or more embodiments, for example, the user interfaceprovider 104 can adjust a decay rate of the scrolling control to presentContent Item E to the user. For example, the user interface provider 104can increase the decay rate of the scrolling control to stop thescrolling sooner than otherwise, e.g., with Content Item E displayedwithin the content window 304. To illustrate another example, hadcontent item manger 108 identified Content Item J instead, the userinterface provider 104 would decrease the decay rate of the scrollingcontrol to cause the scrolling to stop later than otherwise, e.g., withContent Item J displayed within the content window 304.

Alternatively, or in addition to adjusting a scrolling control, the userinterface provider 104 can cause content items to appear to scrollthrough the content window 304 for an amount of time before providingthe identified content item to the user in response to the userinteraction. For example, the system 100 can appear to scroll for 0.5seconds before appearing to land (e.g., stop scrolling) on theidentified content item. The amount of time can vary depending, forexample, on the magnitude of one or more user interactioncharacteristics (e.g., distance and/or speed), or if a usercharacteristic threshold is exceeded.

In addition to the above example of identifying Content Item E, system100 can use various other methods, processes, and/or algorithms toidentify a content item to provide within the content window 304. In oneor more embodiments, for example, the particular method, process, and/oralgorithm the system 100 uses can be based on a predefined method, auser interaction characteristic, a user interaction threshold, a userinteraction type, and/or other factors. For example, the particularalgorithm the system 100 uses to identify a content item can dynamicallyvary to favor or disfavor one or more factors. In particular, additionalmethods, processes, and algorithms of identifying a content item inresponse to a user request are provided below.

As described above, the system 100 can vary the scope of the proximityrange 310 based on factors, such as the user interactioncharacteristics. For example, the content item manager 108 can modifythe scope (e.g., increase or decrease the number of content items) ofthe proximity range 310 in proportion to the magnitude of a userinteraction characteristic. For instance, the content item manager 108can increase the scope of the proximity range 310 from Content Item Fthrough Content Item H to Content Item D through Content Item J when themagnitude of the user interaction characteristic for speed increases.For example, the content item manager 108 can use a lookup table toidentify a proximity range 310 associated with the magnitude of thespeed. In some embodiments, the scope of the proximity range 310 cancorrespond to the user interaction thresholds. For instance, when a userinteraction exceeds a maximum user interaction threshold, the contentitem manager 108 can increase the scope of the proximity range 310 froma number of content items including 10% of the group of content items toa number of content items including 25% of the group of content items.

Additionally or alternatively, the system 100 can increase the proximityrange scope based on a particular type of user interaction. For example,the system 100 can identify any content item to provide to the user solong as the system 100 first navigates beyond a minimal number ofcontent items in response to the user interaction 306. To illustrate,the system 100 can receive a user interaction that exceeds the maximumuser interaction threshold while the user is viewing Content Item A. Inresponse, the system 100 may determine that the scope of the proximityrange 310 to include all content items beyond Content Item C. As such,the system 100 can identify a content item to provide to the user inresponse to the user interaction from Content Items D-J based on one ormore other factors associated with Content Items D-J.

In some embodiments, the system 100 can apply different weights to therelevance factor and the proximity factor within the algorithm. Forexample, the system 100 can increase or decrease the weight of theproximity factor compared the relevance factor. To illustrate, thesystem 100 can assign a weight multiplier of two (2) to the proximityfactor, while the system 100 can assign a weight multiplier of one (1)to the relevance factor. In such an instance, Content Item G has thehighest score within Content Items D-J after summing the weightedrelevance factor values and the weighted proximity factor values. Onewill appreciate that weighting can be applied to the proximity factorand/or the relevance factor in a variety of manners. For example, thesystem 100 can increase the relevance factor value of each content itemby a defined value.

In some embodiments, the system 100 can favor or disfavor the proximityfactor. As described above, when a user provides a user interaction 306that exceeds a maximum user interaction threshold, the user may havelittle concern to which content item the user navigates. Alternatively,the user can provide a particular type of user interaction thatindicates to the system 100 a lack of concern as to which content itemsthe system 100 identifies. In response, the system 100 can give minimal,or no weight to the proximity factor when identifying a content item inresponse to the user interaction 306.

To illustrate, when the proximity factor is disregarded, Content Item Eand Content Item J each have the highest score when comparing the scoresof Content Item D through Content Item J. In this manner, the system 100can identify either Content Item E or Content Item J as having thehighest score and can provide either content item in response to theuser interaction. Alternatively, when two or more content items areidentified has having the same highest score, the system 100 can providethe content item nearest to the content item initially displayed withincontent window 304 prior to receiving the user interaction 306, or inthis instance, Content Item E.

In one or more embodiments, the system 100 can favor or disfavor therelevance factor based on a type of user interaction. To illustrate, forexample, the group of content items 302 consists of a photo library. Inone or more embodiments, the user can provide a particular type of userinteraction to navigate only between photos tagged as including theuser. The system 100 can increase the relevance of the photos tagged asincluding the user based on the type of user interaction (e.g., a twofinger vertical swipe). For example, Content Item I may be a taggedphoto of the user, and as such, the system 100 can increase therelevance factor of Content Item I to have a more favorable relevancefactor than the other photos based on the type of user interaction.Thus, the system 100 provides Content Item I to the user in response tothe particular type of user interaction the user provides.

In one or more additional embodiments, the system 100 can activate anadditional factor to identify a content item in response to a userinteraction 306 meeting or exceeding a user interaction threshold, or inresponse to a particular type of user interaction. For example, when auser provides a particular type of user interaction, the system 100 mayscroll to (e.g., identify and provide) the next unread content item. Inthis manner, the user can scroll between unread content items whileskipping over previously viewed content items within the group ofcontent items 302. To illustrate, a user can provide a tap gesture twicein succession. In response, the system 100 can navigate from ContentItem A to Content Item H because Content Item H is the next unreadcontent item.

In another instance, the system 100 can scroll to a similar content itemas the one currently provided to the user, when the user interaction 306exceeds the maximum threshold or based on a type of user interaction.For example, the system 100 can scroll to a content item provided by thesame content source as the content item currently displayed to the user.To illustrate, a content source, such as a user group or a business canprovide Content Item A and Content Item F to the user. If the user isviewing Content Item A and desires to navigate to the next content itemfrom the same content source as Content Item A, the user can provide aparticular type of user interaction, for example. In response, thesystem 100 can navigate from Content Item A to Content Item F.

In some embodiments, the system 100 can identify a content item based onsystem provider data. For example, the system 100 can navigate to anadvertisement or recommended content item in response to a particulartype of user interaction, or when the user interaction 306 exceeds amaximum user interaction threshold. For instance, the system 100 canincrease the relevance factor of each advertisement content item toensure selection of an advertisement content item. For example, ContentItem G can be an advertisement content item. As shown in FIG. 4, ContentItem G can have a lower relevance factor (e.g., a relevance factor oftwo (2)). The low relevance factor value can result in the system 100not identifying and providing Content Item G to a user in response to auser interaction. However, when the system 100 detects a userinteraction that exceeds the maximum user interaction threshold, forexample, the system 100 can maximize the relevance factor of ContentItem G. Thus, in response to the user interaction, the system 100 canthen identify and provide Content Item G to the user.

Further, in some embodiments, the system 100 can use a rolling weightwhen identifying an advertisement content item to provide to the userwhen the user interaction 306 exceeds the maximum threshold. Forinstance, as described above, the system 100 can increase the weightgiven to each advertisement content item after each detected userinteraction until an advertisement content item is identified. Forexample, the system 100 can increase the relevance factor by one (1)each time the system 100 detects a user interaction that exceeds themaximum user interaction threshold. After the system 100 identifies anadvertisement content item, the system 100 can reset the relevancefactor for each advertisement content item to a default value. Thus, thesystem 100 can satisfy the business objective of the system provider byproviding advertisement content items to users while, at the same time,providing a quality user experience by not overloading the user with anadvertisement content item each time provides a user interaction 306.

To illustrate, as shown in FIG. 4, Content Item G can have a relevancefactor of two (2). After detecting a user interaction that exceeds themaximum user interaction threshold, the system 100 can increment therelevance factor for Content Item G by one (1). For example, the system100 can increment the relevance factor for Content Item G to three (3).The system 100 may again detect a user interaction that exceeds themaximum user interaction threshold. Again, the system 100 can incrementthe relevance factor for Content Item G by one (1). This process canrepeat until the system 100 provides Content Item G, or in someinstances, another advertisement content item to the user. After thesystem 100 provides Content Item G or another advertisement content itemto the user, the system 100 can reduce or reset the relevance factor foreach advertisement content item.

Additionally, the user can define multiple settings or preferences toallow a user to navigate through the group of content items 302. Forinstance, the user can specify which factors correspond to which typesof user interactions the user provides. For example, user can define auser interaction type that causes the system 100 to navigate to contentitems associated with a favorites list specified by the user. Similarly,the user can indicate, for example in a user preference, to whichcontent item the system 100 should navigate when the user interaction306 exceeds a user interaction threshold.

FIGS. 1-4, the corresponding text, and the examples, provide a number ofdifferent systems and devices for identifying a content item to provideto a user in response to a user interaction. In addition to theforegoing, embodiments of the present invention also can be described interms of flowcharts comprising acts and steps in a method foraccomplishing a particular result. For example, FIGS. 5 and 6 illustrateflowcharts of exemplary methods in accordance with one or moreembodiments of the present invention. The methods described in relationto FIGS. 5 and 6 can be performed with less or more steps/acts or thesteps/acts can be performed in differing orders. Additionally, thesteps/acts described herein can be repeated or performed in parallelwith one another or in parallel with different instances of the same orsimilar steps/acts.

FIG. 5 illustrates a flowchart of one example method 500 of identifyinga content item 206 to provide to a user in response to a userinteraction 306. The method 500 includes an act 502 of providing a userinterface used to navigate content items. In particular, act 502 caninvolve providing a graphical user interface used to navigate aplurality of content items 302. For example, act 502 can include theuser interface provider 104 providing the user interface in any suitablemanner disclosed herein.

In addition, method 500 further includes an act 504 of detecting a userinteraction 306. In particular, act 504 can include detecting a userinteraction with respect to the graphical user interface, the userinteraction having a characteristic. For example, act 504 can includethe user interaction detector 106 detecting a user interaction 306 witha computing device 200 in any suitable manner disclosed herein. Inparticular, act 504 can include detecting a user interaction 306 using atouch screen 202 (e.g., a touch gesture). The characteristic of the userinteraction can be a characteristic of the touch gesture, e.g., adirection, or a magnitude of the distance or speed, of the touch gestureas explained in detail above.

Method 500 can additionally include an act 506 of identifying a subsetof content items based on the user interaction 306. In particular, act506 can include identifying, using at least one processor, a subset ofcontent items of the plurality of content items 302 based on thecharacteristic of the user interaction 306. In one or more embodiments,act 506 can include identifying one or more content items 206 based onone or more user interaction characteristics, such a direction,distance, and speed. For example, act 506 can include the content itemmanager 108 determining user interaction characteristics based on inputdata provided by the user interaction detector 106. Furthermore, contentitem manager 108 can identify the subset of content items based on alocation within a group of content items that corresponds with one ormore of the determined user interaction characteristics.

Furthermore, the method 500 can also include an act 508 of identifying acontent item from the subset of content items. In particular, act 508can include identifying a content item from the subset of content itemsbased on a relevance factor associated with each of the subset ofcontent items. For example, the content item manager 108 can identify acontent item from the subset of content items based on which contentitem within the subset of content items has the highest relevancefactor. In addition, the content item manager 108 can use additionalfactors in identifying a content item, as disclosed in detail above.

Moreover, the method 500 can include an act 510 of providing theidentified content item. In particular, act 510 can include providing,within the graphical user interface, the identified content item. Forexample, the content item manager 108 can provide the identified contentitem to a user interface provider 104 to provide the identified contentitem to the user in response to the user interaction 306. For instance,the user interface provider 104 can display the identified content itemin content window 204.

Referring now to FIG. 6, a flowchart of another example method 600 ofidentifying a content item 206 to provide to a user in response to auser interaction 306. As shown, method 600 can include an act 602 ofproviding a user interface used to navigate content items. Inparticular, act 602 can involve providing a graphical user interfaceused to navigate a plurality of content items 302. For example, act 602can include the user interface provider 104 providing the user interfacein any suitable manner disclosed herein.

The method 600 can further include an act 604 of detecting a userinteraction 306. In particular, act 604 can include detecting a userinteraction having a characteristic. For example, act 604 can includethe user interaction detector 106 detecting a user interaction 306 witha computing device 200 in any suitable manner disclosed herein. Inparticular, act 604 can include detecting a user interaction 306 using atouch screen 202 (e.g., a touch gesture). The characteristic of the userinteraction can be a characteristic of the touch gesture, e.g., adirection, or a magnitude of the distance or speed, of the touch gestureas explained in detail above.

Additionally, the method 600 can include an act 606 of identifying,using at least one processor, a target content item 308 based on theuser interaction 306. In particular, act 606 can include identifying atarget content item 308 from the plurality of content items 302 based onthe characteristic of the user interaction. In one example, act 606 caninclude a content item manager 108 identifying a target content item 308based on one or more user interaction characteristics, such a direction,distance, and speed, as disclosed herein.

Furthermore, the method 600 can include an act 608 of determining ascore for content items 206 based on a relevance factor and a proximityfactor. In particular, the act 608 can include determining a score forone or more content items 206 within a proximity range 310 to the targetcontent item 308 based on a relevance factor associated with each of theone or more content items 206 within the proximity range 310 and aproximity factor of each of the one or more content items within theproximity range 310. In one example embodiment, act 608 includes thecontent item manager 108 scoring content items 206 within a proximityrange 310 to the target content item 308 based on a relevance factorand/or a proximity factor, as disclosed herein. To illustrate, thecontent item manager 108 can use an algorithm and weights to determine ascore based on the relevance factor and proximity factor. In addition,the content item manager 108 can use additional factors in determining ascore for each content item.

Method 600 can also include an act 610 of identifying a content itembased on the score. In particular, act 610 can include identifying acontent item 206 from the one or more content items based on the scorefor the one or more content items. For example, the content item manager108 can identify a content item within the proximity range 310 havingthe highest score, as explained in detail above.

In addition, the method 600 can include an act 612 of providing theidentified content item. In particular, act 612 can include providingthe identified content item to the user within the graphical userinterface. For example, the content item manager 108 can provide theidentified content item to a user interface provider 104 to provide theidentified content item within the content window 204. For instance, theuser interface provider 104 can cause a scrolling control to stop suchthat the identified content item is presented in the content window 204.

Embodiments of the present disclosure may comprise or utilize a specialpurpose or general-purpose computer including computer hardware, suchas, for example, one or more processors and system memory, as discussedin greater detail below. Embodiments within the scope of the presentdisclosure also include physical and other computer-readable media forcarrying or storing computer-executable instructions and/or datastructures. In particular, one or more of the processes described hereinmay be implemented at least in part as instructions embodied in anon-transitory computer-readable medium and executable by one or morecomputing devices (e.g., any of the computing devices described herein).In general, a processor (e.g., a microprocessor) receives instructions,from a non-transitory computer-readable medium (e.g., a memory, etc.),and executes those instructions, thereby performing one or moreprocesses, including one or more of the processes described herein.

The computer-readable media can be any available media that can beaccessed by a general purpose or special purpose computer system orcomputing device. Computer-readable media that store computer-executableinstructions may include non-transitory computer-readable storage media(devices). In addition, computer-readable media that carrycomputer-executable instructions may include transmission media. Thus,by way of example, and not limitation, embodiments of the disclosure cancomprise at least two distinctly different kinds of computer-readablemedia: non-transitory computer-readable storage media (devices) andtransmission media.

Non-transitory computer-readable storage media (devices) includes RAM,ROM, EEPROM, CD-ROM, solid state drives (“SSDs”) (e.g., based on RAM),Flash memory, phase-change memory (“PCM”), other types of memory, otheroptical disk storage, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storagedevices, or any other medium which can be used to store desired programcode in the form of computer-executable instructions or data structuresand which can be accessed by a general purpose or special purposecomputer.

A “network” is defined as one or more data links that enable thetransport of electronic data between computer systems and/or modulesand/or other computing devices. When information is transferred orprovided over a network or another communications connection (eitherhardwired, wireless, or a combination of hardwired or wireless) to acomputer, the computer properly views the connection as a transmissionmedium. Transmissions media can include a network and/or data linkswhich can be used to carry desired program code means in the form ofcomputer-executable instructions or data structures and which can beaccessed by a general purpose or special purpose computer. Combinationsof the above should also be included within the scope ofcomputer-readable media.

Further, upon reaching various computer system components, program codein the form of computer-executable instructions or data structures canbe transferred automatically from transmission media to non-transitorycomputer-readable storage media (devices) (or vice versa). For example,computer-executable instructions or data structures received over anetwork or data link can be buffered in RAM within a network interfacemodule (e.g., a “NIC”), and then eventually transferred to computersystem RAM and/or to less volatile computer storage media (devices) at acomputer system. Thus, it should be understood that non-transitorycomputer-readable storage media (devices) can be included in computersystem components that also (or even primarily) utilize transmissionmedia.

Computer-executable instructions comprise, for example, instructions anddata which, when executed at a processor, cause a general-purposecomputer, special-purpose computer, or special-purpose processing deviceto perform a certain function or group of functions. In someembodiments, computer-executable instructions are executed on ageneral-purpose computer to turn the general-purpose computer into aspecial-purpose computer implementing elements of the disclosure. Thecomputer executable instructions may, for example, include binaries,intermediate format instructions such as assembly language, or evensource code. Although the subject matter has been described in languagespecific to structural features and/or methodological acts, it is to beunderstood that the subject matter defined in the appended claims is notnecessarily limited to the described features or acts described above.Rather, the described features and acts are disclosed as example formsof implementing the claims.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that one or more embodimentsincluded within the disclosure may be practiced in network computingenvironments with many types of computer system configurations,including, personal computers, desktop computers, laptop computers,message processors, hand-held devices, multi-processor systems,microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronics, network PCs,minicomputers, mainframe computers, mobile telephones, PDAs, tablets,pagers, routers, switches, and the like. Example embodiments includedwithin the disclosure may also be practiced in distributed systemenvironments where local and remote computer systems, which are linked(either by hardwired data links, wireless data links, or by acombination of hardwired and wireless data links) through a network,both perform tasks. In a distributed system environment, program modulesmay be located in both local and remote memory storage devices.

Embodiments of the present disclosure can also be implemented in cloudcomputing environments. In this description, “cloud computing” isdefined as a model for enabling on-demand network access to a sharedpool of configurable computing resources. For example, cloud computingcan be employed in the marketplace to offer ubiquitous and convenienton-demand access to the shared pool of configurable computing resources.The shared pool of configurable computing resources can be rapidlyprovisioned via virtualization and released with low management effortor service provider interaction, and then scaled accordingly.

A cloud-computing environment can be composed of various characteristicssuch as, for example, on-demand self-service, broad network access,resource pooling, rapid elasticity, measured service, and so forth. Acloud-computing environment can also expose various service models, suchas, for example, Software as a Service (“SaaS”), Platform as a Service(“PaaS”), and Infrastructure as a Service (“IaaS”). A cloud-computingenvironment can also be deployed using different deployment models suchas private cloud, community cloud, public cloud, hybrid cloud, and soforth. In this description and in the claims, a “cloud-computingenvironment” is an environment in which cloud computing is employed.

FIG. 7 illustrates a block diagram of exemplary computing device 700that may be configured to perform one or more of the processes describedabove. One will appreciate that one or more computing devices, such asthe computing device 700, may implement the content navigation system100. As shown by FIG. 7, the computing device 700 can comprise aprocessor 702, a memory 704, a storage device 706, an I/O interface 708,and a communication interface 710, which may be communicatively coupledby way of a communication infrastructure 712. While an exemplarycomputing device 700 is shown in FIG. 7, the components illustrated inFIG. 7 are not intended to be limiting. Additional or alternativecomponents may be used in other embodiments. Furthermore, in certainembodiments, the computing device 700 can include fewer components thanthose shown in FIG. 7. Components of the computing device 700 shown inFIG. 7 will now be described in additional detail.

In one or more embodiments, the processor 702 includes hardware forexecuting instructions, such as those making up a computer program. Asan example and not by way of limitation, to execute instructions, theprocessor 702 may retrieve (or fetch) the instructions from an internalregister, an internal cache, the memory 704, or the storage device 706and decode and execute them. In one or more embodiments, the processor702 may include one or more internal caches for data, instructions, oraddresses. As an example and not by way of limitation, the processor 702may include one or more instruction caches, one or more data caches, andone or more translation lookaside buffers (TLBs). Instructions in theinstruction caches may be copies of instructions in the memory 704 orthe storage 706.

The memory 704 may be used for storing data, metadata, and programs forexecution by the processor(s). The memory 704 may include one or more ofvolatile and non-volatile memories, such as Random Access Memory(“RAM”), Read Only Memory (“ROM”), a solid state disk (“SSD”), Flash,Phase Change Memory (“PCM”), or other types of data storage. The memory704 may be internal or distributed memory.

The storage device 706 includes storage for storing data orinstructions. As an example and not by way of limitation, storage device706 can comprise a non-transitory storage medium described above. Thestorage device 706 may include a hard disk drive (HDD), a floppy diskdrive, flash memory, an optical disc, a magneto-optical disc, magnetictape, or a Universal Serial Bus (USB) drive or a combination of two ormore of these. The storage device 706 may include removable ornon-removable (or fixed) media, where appropriate. The storage device706 may be internal or external to the computing device 700. In one ormore embodiments, the storage device 706 is non-volatile, solid-statememory. In other embodiments, the storage device 706 includes read-onlymemory (ROM). Where appropriate, this ROM may be mask programmed ROM,programmable ROM (PROM), erasable PROM (EPROM), electrically erasablePROM (EEPROM), electrically alterable ROM (EAROM), or flash memory or acombination of two or more of these.

The I/O interface 708 allows a user to provide input to, receive outputfrom, and otherwise transfer data to and receive data from computingdevice 700. The I/O interface 708 may include a mouse, a keypad or akeyboard, a touch screen, a camera, an optical scanner, networkinterface, modem, other known I/O devices or a combination of such I/Ointerfaces. The I/O interface 708 may include one or more devices forpresenting output to a user, including, but not limited to, a graphicsengine, a display (e.g., a display screen), one or more output drivers(e.g., display drivers), one or more audio speakers, and one or moreaudio drivers. In certain embodiments, the I/O interface 708 isconfigured to provide graphical data to a display for presentation to auser. The graphical data may be representative of one or more graphicaluser interfaces and/or any other graphical content as may serve aparticular implementation.

The communication interface 710 can include hardware, software, or both.In any event, the communication interface 710 can provide one or moreinterfaces for communication (such as, for example, packet-basedcommunication) between the computing device 700 and one or more othercomputing devices or networks. As an example and not by way oflimitation, the communication interface 710 may include a networkinterface controller (NIC) or network adapter for communicating with anEthernet or other wire-based network or a wireless NIC (WNIC) orwireless adapter for communicating with a wireless network, such as aWI-FI.

Additionally or alternatively, the communication interface 710 mayfacilitate communications with an ad hoc network, a personal areanetwork (PAN), a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), ametropolitan area network (MAN), or one or more portions of the Internetor a combination of two or more of these. One or more portions of one ormore of these networks may be wired or wireless. As an example, thecommunication interface 710 may facilitate communications with awireless PAN (WPAN) (such as, for example, a BLUETOOTH WPAN), a WI-FInetwork, a WI-MAX network, a cellular telephone network (such as, forexample, a Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) network), orother suitable wireless network or a combination thereof.

Additionally, the communication interface 710 may facilitatecommunications various communication protocols. Examples ofcommunication protocols that may be used include, but are not limitedto, data transmission media, communications devices, TransmissionControl Protocol (“TCP”), Internet Protocol (“IP”), File TransferProtocol (“FTP”), Telnet, Hypertext Transfer Protocol (“HTTP”),Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (“HTTPS”), Session InitiationProtocol (“SIP”), Simple Object Access Protocol (“SOAP”), ExtensibleMark-up Language (“XML”) and variations thereof, Simple Mail TransferProtocol (“SMTP”), Real-Time Transport Protocol (“RTP”), User DatagramProtocol (“UDP”), Global System for Mobile Communications (“GSM”)technologies, Code Division Multiple Access (“CDMA”) technologies, TimeDivision Multiple Access (“TDMA”) technologies, Short Message Service(“SMS”), Multimedia Message Service (“MMS”), radio frequency (“RF”)signaling technologies, Long Term Evolution (“LTE”) technologies,wireless communication technologies, in-band and out-of-band signalingtechnologies, and other suitable communications networks andtechnologies.

The communication infrastructure 712 may include hardware, software, orboth that couples components of the computing device 700 to each other.As an example and not by way of limitation, the communicationinfrastructure 712 may include an Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) orother graphics bus, an Enhanced Industry Standard Architecture (EISA)bus, a front-side bus (FSB), a HYPERTRANSPORT (HT) interconnect, anIndustry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus, an INFINIBAND interconnect, alow-pin-count (LPC) bus, a memory bus, a Micro Channel Architecture(MCA) bus, a Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus, a PCI-Express(PCIe) bus, a serial advanced technology attachment (SATA) bus, a VideoElectronics Standards Association local (VLB) bus, or another suitablebus or a combination thereof.

As mentioned above, the content navigation system 100 be implemented by,within, or be connected to a social-networking system. Asocial-networking system may enable its users (such as persons ororganizations) to interact with the system and with each other. Thesocial-networking system may, with input from a user, create and storein the social-networking system a user profile associated with the user.The user profile may include demographic information,communication-channel information, and information on personal interestsof the user. The social-networking system may also, with input from auser, create and store a record of relationships of the user with otherusers of the social-networking system, as well as provide services (e.g.wall posts, photo-sharing, on-line calendars and event organization,messaging, games, or advertisements) to facilitate social interactionbetween or among users. Also, the social-networking system may allowusers to post photographs and other multimedia content items to a user'sprofile page (typically known as “wall posts” or “timeline posts”) or ina photo album, both of which may be accessible to other users of thesocial-networking system depending upon the user's configured privacysettings.

FIG. 8 illustrates an example network environment 800 of asocial-networking system. The network environment 800 includes a clientdevice 806, a social-networking system 802, and a third-party system 808connected to each other by a network 804. Although FIG. 8 illustrates aparticular arrangement of client device 806, social-networking system802, third-party system 808, and network 804, this disclosurecontemplates any suitable arrangement of the client device 806, thesocial-networking system 802, the third-party system 808, and thenetwork 804. As an example and not by way of limitation, two or more ofthe client device 806, the social-networking system 802, and thethird-party system 808 may be connected to each other directly,bypassing the network 804. As another example, two or more of the clientdevice 806, the social-networking system 802, and the third-party system808 may be physically or logically co-located with each other in wholeor in part. Moreover, although FIG. 8 illustrates a particular number ofclient devices 806, social-networking systems 802, third-party systems808, and networks 804, this disclosure contemplates any suitable numberof client devices 806, social-networking systems 802, third-partysystems 808, and networks 804. As an example and not by way oflimitation, network environment 800 may include multiple client devices806, social-networking systems 802, third-party systems 808, andnetworks 804.

This disclosure contemplates any suitable network 804. As an example andnot by way of limitation, one or more portions of network 804 mayinclude an ad hoc network, an intranet, an extranet, a virtual privatenetwork (VPN), a local area network (LAN), a wireless LAN (WLAN), a widearea network (WAN), a wireless WAN (WWAN), a metropolitan area network(MAN), a portion of the Internet, a portion of the Public SwitchedTelephone Network (PSTN), a cellular telephone network, or a combinationof two or more of these. Network 804 may include one or more networks804.

Links may connect client device 806, social-networking system 802, andthird-party system 808 to communication network 804 or to each other.This disclosure contemplates any suitable links. In particularembodiments, one or more links include one or more wireline (such as forexample Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) or Data Over Cable ServiceInterface Specification (DOCSIS)), wireless (such as for example Wi-Fior Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX)), or optical(such as for example Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) or SynchronousDigital Hierarchy (SDH)) links. In particular embodiments, one or morelinks each include an ad hoc network, an intranet, an extranet, a VPN, aLAN, a WLAN, a WAN, a WWAN, a MAN, a portion of the Internet, a portionof the PSTN, a cellular technology-based network, a satellitecommunications technology-based network, another link, or a combinationof two or more such links Links need not necessarily be the samethroughout network environment 800. One or more first links may differin one or more respects from one or more second links.

In particular embodiments, client device 806 may be an electronic deviceincluding hardware, software, or embedded logic components or acombination of two or more such components and capable of carrying outthe appropriate functionalities implemented or supported by clientdevice 806. As an example and not by way of limitation, a client device806 may include any of the computing devices discussed above in relationto FIG. 7. A client device 806 may enable a network user at clientdevice 806 to access network 804. A client device 806 may enable itsuser to communicate with other users at other client systems 806.

In particular embodiments, client device 806 may include a web browser,such as MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER, GOOGLE CHROME or MOZILLA FIREFOX,and may have one or more add-ons, plug-ins, or other extensions, such astoolbar. A user at client device 806 may enter a Uniform ResourceLocator (URL) or other address directing the web browser to a particularserver (such as server, or a server associated with a third-party system808), and the web browser may generate a Hyper Text Transfer Protocol(HTTP) request and communicate the HTTP request to server. The servermay accept the HTTP request and communicate to client device 806 one ormore Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) files responsive to the HTTPrequest. Client device 806 may render a webpage based on the HTML filesfrom the server for presentation to the user. This disclosurecontemplates any suitable webpage files. As an example and not by way oflimitation, webpages may render from HTML files, Extensible Hyper TextMarkup Language (XHTML) files, or Extensible Markup Language (XML)files, according to particular needs. Such pages may also executescripts such as, for example and without limitation, those written inJAVASCRIPT, JAVA, MICROSOFT SILVERLIGHT, combinations of markup languageand scripts such as AJAX (Asynchronous JAVASCRIPT and XML), and thelike. Herein, reference to a webpage encompasses one or morecorresponding webpage files (which a browser may use to render thewebpage) and vice versa, where appropriate.

In particular embodiments, social-networking system 802 may be anetwork-addressable computing system that can host an online socialnetwork. Social-networking system 802 may generate, store, receive, andsend social-networking data, such as, for example, user-profile data,concept-profile data, social-graph information, or other suitable datarelated to the online social network. Social-networking system 802 maybe accessed by the other components of network environment 800 eitherdirectly or via network 804. In particular embodiments,social-networking system 802 may include one or more servers. Eachserver may be a unitary server or a distributed server spanning multiplecomputers or multiple datacenters. Servers may be of various types, suchas, for example and without limitation, web server, news server, mailserver, message server, advertising server, file server, applicationserver, exchange server, database server, proxy server, another serversuitable for performing functions or processes described herein, or anycombination thereof. In particular embodiments, each server may includehardware, software, or embedded logic components or a combination of twoor more such components for carrying out the appropriate functionalitiesimplemented or supported by server. In particular embodiments,social-networking system 802 may include one or more data stores. Datastores may be used to store various types of information. In particularembodiments, the information stored in data stores may be organizedaccording to specific data structures. In particular embodiments, eachdata store may be a relational, columnar, correlation, or other suitabledatabase. Although this disclosure describes or illustrates particulartypes of databases, this disclosure contemplates any suitable types ofdatabases. Particular embodiments may provide interfaces that enable aclient device 806, a social-networking system 802, or a third-partysystem 808 to manage, retrieve, modify, add, or delete, the informationstored in data store.

In particular embodiments, social-networking system 802 may store one ormore social graphs in one or more data stores. In particularembodiments, a social graph may include multiple nodes—which may includemultiple user nodes (each corresponding to a particular user) ormultiple concept nodes (each corresponding to a particular concept)—andmultiple edges connecting the nodes. Social-networking system 802 mayprovide users of the online social network the ability to communicateand interact with other users. In particular embodiments, users may jointhe online social network via social-networking system 802 and then addconnections (e.g., relationships) to a number of other users ofsocial-networking system 802 whom they want to be connected to. Herein,the term “friend” may refer to any other user of social-networkingsystem 802 with whom a user has formed a connection, association, orrelationship via social-networking system 802.

In particular embodiments, social-networking system 802 may provideusers with the ability to take actions on various types of items orobjects, supported by social-networking system 802. As an example andnot by way of limitation, the items and objects may include groups orsocial networks to which users of social-networking system 802 maybelong, events or calendar entries in which a user might be interested,computer-based applications that a user may use, transactions that allowusers to buy or sell items via the service, interactions withadvertisements that a user may perform, or other suitable items orobjects. A user may interact with anything that is capable of beingrepresented in social-networking system 802 or by an external system ofthird-party system 808, which is separate from social-networking system802 and coupled to social-networking system 802 via a network 804.

In particular embodiments, social-networking system 802 may be capableof linking a variety of entities. As an example and not by way oflimitation, social-networking system 802 may enable users to interactwith each other as well as receive content from third-party systems 808or other entities, or to allow users to interact with these entitiesthrough an application programming interfaces (API) or othercommunication channels.

In particular embodiments, a third-party system 808 may include one ormore types of servers, one or more data stores, one or more interfaces,including but not limited to APIs, one or more web services, one or morecontent sources, one or more networks, or any other suitable components,e.g., that servers may communicate with. A third-party system 808 may beoperated by a different entity from an entity operatingsocial-networking system 802. In particular embodiments, however,social-networking system 802 and third-party systems 808 may operate inconjunction with each other to provide social-networking services tousers of social-networking system 802 or third-party systems 808. Inthis sense, social-networking system 802 may provide a platform, orbackbone, which other systems, such as third-party systems 808, may useto provide social-networking services and functionality to users acrossthe Internet.

In particular embodiments, a third-party system 808 may include athird-party content object provider. A third-party content objectprovider may include one or more sources of content objects, which maybe communicated to a client device 806. As an example and not by way oflimitation, content objects may include information regarding things oractivities of interest to the user, such as, for example, movie showtimes, movie reviews, restaurant reviews, restaurant menus, productinformation and reviews, or other suitable information. As anotherexample and not by way of limitation, content objects may includeincentive content objects, such as coupons, discount tickets, giftcertificates, or other suitable incentive objects.

In particular embodiments, social-networking system 802 also includesuser-generated content objects, which may enhance a user's interactionswith social-networking system 802. User-generated content may includeanything a user can add, upload, send, or “post” to social-networkingsystem 802. As an example and not by way of limitation, a usercommunicates posts to social-networking system 802 from a client device806. Posts may include data such as status updates or other textualdata, location information, photos, videos, links, music or othersimilar data or media. Content may also be added to social-networkingsystem 802 by a third-party through a “communication channel,” such as anewsfeed or stream.

In particular embodiments, social-networking system 802 may include avariety of servers, sub-systems, programs, modules, logs, and datastores. In particular embodiments, social-networking system 802 mayinclude one or more of the following: a web server, action logger,API-request server, relevance-and-ranking engine, content-objectclassifier, notification controller, action log,third-party-content-object-exposure log, inference module,authorization/privacy server, search module, advertisement-targetingmodule, user-interface module, user-profile store, connection store,third-party content store, or location store. Social-networking system802 may also include suitable components such as network interfaces,security mechanisms, load balancers, failover servers,management-and-network-operations consoles, other suitable components,or any suitable combination thereof. In particular embodiments,social-networking system 802 may include one or more user-profile storesfor storing user profiles. A user profile may include, for example,biographic information, demographic information, behavioral information,social information, or other types of descriptive information, such aswork experience, educational history, hobbies or preferences, interests,affinities, or location. Interest information may include interestsrelated to one or more categories. Categories may be general orspecific. As an example and not by way of limitation, if a user “likes”an article about a brand of shoes the category may be the brand, or thegeneral category of “shoes” or “clothing.” A connection store may beused for storing connection information about users. The connectioninformation may indicate users who have similar or common workexperience, group memberships, hobbies, educational history, or are inany way related or share common attributes. The connection informationmay also include user-defined connections between different users andcontent (both internal and external). A web server may be used forlinking social-networking system 802 to one or more client systems 806or one or more third-party system 808 via network 804. The web servermay include a mail server or other messaging functionality for receivingand routing messages between social-networking system 802 and one ormore client systems 806. An API-request server may allow a third-partysystem 808 to access information from social-networking system 802 bycalling one or more APIs. An action logger may be used to receivecommunications from a web server about a user's actions on or offsocial-networking system 802. In conjunction with the action log, athird-party-content-object log may be maintained of user exposures tothird-party-content objects. A notification controller may provideinformation regarding content objects to a client device 806.Information may be pushed to a client device 806 as notifications, orinformation may be pulled from client device 806 responsive to a requestreceived from client device 806. Authorization servers may be used toenforce one or more privacy settings of the users of social-networkingsystem 802. A privacy setting of a user determines how particularinformation associated with a user can be shared. The authorizationserver may allow users to opt in to or opt out of having their actionslogged by social-networking system 802 or shared with other systems(e.g., third-party system 808), such as, for example, by settingappropriate privacy settings. Third-party-content-object stores may beused to store content objects received from third parties, such as athird-party system 808. Location stores may be used for storing locationinformation received from client systems 806 associated with users.Advertisement-pricing modules may combine social information, thecurrent time, location information, or other suitable information toprovide relevant advertisements, in the form of notifications, to auser.

FIG. 9 illustrates example social graph 900. In particular embodiments,social-networking system 802 may store one or more social graphs 900 inone or more data stores. In particular embodiments, social graph 900 mayinclude multiple nodes—which may include multiple user nodes 902 ormultiple concept nodes 904—and multiple edges 906 connecting the nodes.Example social graph 900 illustrated in FIG. 9 is shown, for didacticpurposes, in a two-dimensional visual map representation. In particularembodiments, a social-networking system 802, client device 806, orthird-party system 808 may access social graph 900 and relatedsocial-graph information for suitable applications. The nodes and edgesof social graph 900 may be stored as data objects, for example, in adata store (such as a social-graph database). Such a data store mayinclude one or more searchable or query able indexes of nodes or edgesof social graph 900.

In particular embodiments, a user node 902 may correspond to a user ofsocial-networking system 802. As an example and not by way oflimitation, a user may be an individual (human user), an entity (e.g.,an enterprise, business, or third-party application), or a group (e.g.,of individuals or entities) that interacts or communicates with or oversocial-networking system 802. In particular embodiments, when a userregisters for an account with social-networking system 802,social-networking system 802 may create a user node 902 corresponding tothe user, and store the user node 902 in one or more data stores. Usersand user nodes 902 described herein may, where appropriate, refer toregistered users and user nodes 902 associated with registered users. Inaddition or as an alternative, users and user nodes 902 described hereinmay, where appropriate, refer to users that have not registered withsocial-networking system 802. In particular embodiments, a user node 902may be associated with information provided by a user or informationgathered by various systems, including social-networking system 802. Asan example and not by way of limitation, a user may provide his or hername, profile picture, contact information, birth date, sex, maritalstatus, family status, employment, education background, preferences,interests, or other demographic information. Each user node of thesocial graph may have a corresponding web page (typically known as aprofile page). In response to a request including a user name, thesocial-networking system can access a user node corresponding to theuser name, and construct a profile page including the name, a profilepicture, and other information associated with the user. A profile pageof a first user may display to a second user all or a portion of thefirst user's information based on one or more privacy settings by thefirst user and the relationship between the first user and the seconduser.

In particular embodiments, a concept node 904 may correspond to aconcept. As an example and not by way of limitation, a concept maycorrespond to a place (such as, for example, a movie theater,restaurant, landmark, or city); a website (such as, for example, awebsite associated with social-network system 802 or a third-partywebsite associated with a web-application server); an entity (such as,for example, a person, business, group, sports team, or celebrity); aresource (such as, for example, an audio file, video file, digitalphoto, text file, structured document, or application) which may belocated within social-networking system 802 or on an external server,such as a web-application server; real or intellectual property (suchas, for example, a sculpture, painting, movie, game, song, idea,photograph, or written work); a game; an activity; an idea or theory;another suitable concept; or two or more such concepts. A concept node904 may be associated with information of a concept provided by a useror information gathered by various systems, including social-networkingsystem 802. As an example and not by way of limitation, information of aconcept may include a name or a title; one or more images (e.g., animage of the cover page of a book); a location (e.g., an address or ageographical location); a website (which may be associated with a URL);contact information (e.g., a phone number or an email address); othersuitable concept information; or any suitable combination of suchinformation. In particular embodiments, a concept node 904 may beassociated with one or more data objects corresponding to informationassociated with concept node 904. In particular embodiments, a conceptnode 904 may correspond to one or more webpages.

In particular embodiments, a node in social graph 900 may represent orbe represented by a webpage (which may be referred to as a “profilepage”). Profile pages may be hosted by or accessible tosocial-networking system 802. Profile pages may also be hosted onthird-party websites associated with a third-party server 808. As anexample and not by way of limitation, a profile page corresponding to aparticular external webpage may be the particular external webpage andthe profile page may correspond to a particular concept node 904.Profile pages may be viewable by all or a selected subset of otherusers. As an example and not by way of limitation, a user node 902 mayhave a corresponding user-profile page in which the corresponding usermay add content, make declarations, or otherwise express himself orherself. As another example and not by way of limitation, a concept node904 may have a corresponding concept-profile page in which one or moreusers may add content, make declarations, or express themselves,particularly in relation to the concept corresponding to concept node904.

In particular embodiments, a concept node 904 may represent athird-party webpage or resource hosted by a third-party system 808. Thethird-party webpage or resource may include, among other elements,content, a selectable or other icon, or other inter-actable object(which may be implemented, for example, in JavaScript, AJAX, or PHPcodes) representing an action or activity. As an example and not by wayof limitation, a third-party webpage may include a selectable icon suchas “like,” “check in,” “eat,” “recommend,” or another suitable action oractivity. A user viewing the third-party webpage may perform an actionby selecting one of the icons (e.g., “eat”), causing a client device 806to send to social-networking system 802 a message indicating the user'saction. In response to the message, social-networking system 802 maycreate an edge (e.g., an “eat” edge) between a user node 902corresponding to the user and a concept node 904 corresponding to thethird-party webpage or resource and store edge 906 in one or more datastores.

In particular embodiments, a pair of nodes in social graph 900 may beconnected to each other by one or more edges 906. An edge 906 connectinga pair of nodes may represent a relationship between the pair of nodes.In particular embodiments, an edge 906 may include or represent one ormore data objects or attributes corresponding to the relationshipbetween a pair of nodes. As an example and not by way of limitation, afirst user may indicate that a second user is a “friend” of the firstuser. In response to this indication, social-networking system 802 maysend a “friend request” to the second user. If the second user confirmsthe “friend request,” social-networking system 802 may create an edge906 connecting the first user's user node 902 to the second user's usernode 902 in social graph 900 and store edge 906 as social-graphinformation in one or more of data stores. In the example of FIG. 9,social graph 900 includes an edge 906 indicating a friend relationbetween user nodes 902 of user “A” and user “B” and an edge indicating afriend relation between user nodes 902 of user “C” and user “B.”Although this disclosure describes or illustrates particular edges 906with particular attributes connecting particular user nodes 902, thisdisclosure contemplates any suitable edges 906 with any suitableattributes connecting user nodes 902. As an example and not by way oflimitation, an edge 906 may represent a friendship, family relationship,business or employment relationship, fan relationship, followerrelationship, visitor relationship, subscriber relationship,superior/subordinate relationship, reciprocal relationship,non-reciprocal relationship, another suitable type of relationship, ortwo or more such relationships. Moreover, although this disclosuregenerally describes nodes as being connected, this disclosure alsodescribes users or concepts as being connected. Herein, references tousers or concepts being connected may, where appropriate, refer to thenodes corresponding to those users or concepts being connected in socialgraph 900 by one or more edges 906.

In particular embodiments, an edge 906 between a user node 902 and aconcept node 904 may represent a particular action or activity performedby a user associated with user node 902 toward a concept associated witha concept node 904. As an example and not by way of limitation, asillustrated in FIG. 9, a user may “like,” “attended,” “played,”“listened,” “cooked,” “worked at,” or “watched” a concept, each of whichmay correspond to a edge type or subtype. A concept-profile pagecorresponding to a concept node 904 may include, for example, aselectable “check in” icon (such as, for example, a clickable “check in”icon) or a selectable “add to favorites” icon. Similarly, after a userclicks these icons, social-networking system 802 may create a “favorite”edge or a “check in” edge in response to a user's action correspondingto a respective action. As another example and not by way of limitation,a user (user “C”) may listen to a particular song (“Ramble On”) using aparticular application (SPOTIFY, which is an online music application).In this case, social-networking system 802 may create a “listened” edge906 and a “used” edge (as illustrated in FIG. 9) between user nodes 902corresponding to the user and concept nodes 904 corresponding to thesong and application to indicate that the user listened to the song andused the application. Moreover, social-networking system 802 may createa “played” edge 906 (as illustrated in FIG. 9) between concept nodes 904corresponding to the song and the application to indicate that theparticular song was played by the particular application. In this case,“played” edge 906 corresponds to an action performed by an externalapplication (SPOTIFY) on an external audio file (the song “Imagine”).Although this disclosure describes particular edges 906 with particularattributes connecting user nodes 902 and concept nodes 904, thisdisclosure contemplates any suitable edges 906 with any suitableattributes connecting user nodes 902 and concept nodes 904. Moreover,although this disclosure describes edges between a user node 902 and aconcept node 904 representing a single relationship, this disclosurecontemplates edges between a user node 902 and a concept node 904representing one or more relationships. As an example and not by way oflimitation, an edge 906 may represent both that a user likes and hasused at a particular concept. Alternatively, another edge 906 mayrepresent each type of relationship (or multiples of a singlerelationship) between a user node 902 and a concept node 904 (asillustrated in FIG. 9 between user node 902 for user “E” and conceptnode 904 for “SPOTIFY”).

In particular embodiments, social-networking system 802 may create anedge 906 between a user node 902 and a concept node 904 in social graph900. As an example and not by way of limitation, a user viewing aconcept-profile page (such as, for example, by using a web browser or aspecial-purpose application hosted by the user's client device 806) mayindicate that he or she likes the concept represented by the conceptnode 904 by clicking or selecting a “Like” icon, which may cause theuser's client device 806 to send to social-networking system 802 amessage indicating the user's liking of the concept associated with theconcept-profile page. In response to the message, social-networkingsystem 802 may create an edge 906 between user node 902 associated withthe user and concept node 904, as illustrated by “like” edge 906 betweenthe user and concept node 904. In particular embodiments,social-networking system 802 may store an edge 906 in one or more datastores. In particular embodiments, an edge 906 may be automaticallyformed by social-networking system 802 in response to a particular useraction. As an example and not by way of limitation, if a first useruploads a picture, watches a movie, or listens to a song, an edge 906may be formed between user node 902 corresponding to the first user andconcept nodes 904 corresponding to those concepts. Although thisdisclosure describes forming particular edges 906 in particular manners,this disclosure contemplates forming any suitable edges 906 in anysuitable manner.

In particular embodiments, an advertisement may be text (which may beHTML-linked), one or more images (which may be HTML-linked), one or morevideos, audio, one or more ADOBE FLASH files, a suitable combination ofthese, or any other suitable advertisement in any suitable digitalformat presented on one or more webpages, in one or more e-mails, or inconnection with search results requested by a user. In addition or as analternative, an advertisement may be one or more sponsored stories(e.g., a news-feed or ticker item on social-networking system 802). Asponsored story may be a social action by a user (such as “liking” apage, “liking” or commenting on a post on a page, RSVPing to an eventassociated with a page, voting on a question posted on a page, checkingin to a place, using an application or playing a game, or “liking” orsharing a website) that an advertiser promotes, for example, by havingthe social action presented within a pre-determined area of a profilepage of a user or other page, presented with additional informationassociated with the advertiser, bumped up or otherwise highlightedwithin news feeds or tickers of other users, or otherwise promoted. Theadvertiser may pay to have the social action promoted. As an example andnot by way of limitation, advertisements may be included among thesearch results of a search-results page, where sponsored content ispromoted over non-sponsored content.

In particular embodiments, an advertisement may be requested for displaywithin social-networking-system webpages, third-party webpages, or otherpages. An advertisement may be displayed in a dedicated portion of apage, such as in a banner area at the top of the page, in a column atthe side of the page, in a GUI of the page, in a pop-up window, in adrop-down menu, in an input field of the page, over the top of contentof the page, or elsewhere with respect to the page. In addition or as analternative, an advertisement may be displayed within an application. Anadvertisement may be displayed within dedicated pages, requiring theuser to interact with or watch the advertisement before the user mayaccess a page or utilize an application. The user may, for example viewthe advertisement through a web browser.

A user may interact with an advertisement in any suitable manner. Theuser may click or otherwise select the advertisement. By selecting theadvertisement, the user may be directed to (or a browser or otherapplication being used by the user) a page associated with theadvertisement. At the page associated with the advertisement, the usermay take additional actions, such as purchasing a product or serviceassociated with the advertisement, receiving information associated withthe advertisement, or subscribing to a newsletter associated with theadvertisement. An advertisement with audio or video may be played byselecting a component of the advertisement (like a “play button”).Alternatively, by selecting the advertisement, social-networking system802 may execute or modify a particular action of the user.

An advertisement may also include social-networking-system functionalitythat a user may interact with. As an example and not by way oflimitation, an advertisement may enable a user to “like” or otherwiseendorse the advertisement by selecting an icon or link associated withendorsement. As another example and not by way of limitation, anadvertisement may enable a user to search (e.g., by executing a query)for content related to the advertiser. Similarly, a user may share theadvertisement with another user (e.g., through social-networking system802) or RSVP (e.g., through social-networking system 802) to an eventassociated with the advertisement. In addition or as an alternative, anadvertisement may include social-networking-system context directed tothe user. As an example and not by way of limitation, an advertisementmay display information about a friend of the user withinsocial-networking system 802 who has taken an action associated with thesubject matter of the advertisement.

In particular embodiments, social-networking system 802 may determinethe social-graph affinity (which may be referred to herein as“affinity”) of various social-graph entities for each other. Affinitymay represent the strength of a relationship or level of interestbetween particular objects associated with the online social network,such as users, concepts, content, actions, advertisements, other objectsassociated with the online social network, or any suitable combinationthereof. Affinity may also be determined with respect to objectsassociated with third-party systems 808 or other suitable systems. Anoverall affinity for a social-graph entity for each user, subjectmatter, or type of content may be established. The overall affinity maychange based on continued monitoring of the actions or relationshipsassociated with the social-graph entity. Although this disclosuredescribes determining particular affinities in a particular manner, thisdisclosure contemplates determining any suitable affinities in anysuitable manner.

In particular embodiments, social-networking system 802 may measure orquantify social-graph affinity using an affinity coefficient (which maybe referred to herein as “coefficient”). The coefficient may representor quantify the strength of a relationship between particular objectsassociated with the online social network. The coefficient may alsorepresent a probability or function that measures a predictedprobability that a user will perform a particular action based on theuser's interest in the action. In this way, a user's future actions maybe predicted based on the user's prior actions, where the coefficientmay be calculated at least in part a the history of the user's actions.Coefficients may be used to predict any number of actions, which may bewithin or outside of the online social network. As an example and not byway of limitation, these actions may include various types ofcommunications, such as sending messages, posting content, or commentingon content; various types of a observation actions, such as accessing orviewing profile pages, media, or other suitable content; various typesof coincidence information about two or more social-graph entities, suchas being in the same group, tagged in the same photograph, checked-in atthe same location, or attending the same event; or other suitableactions. Although this disclosure describes measuring affinity in aparticular manner, this disclosure contemplates measuring affinity inany suitable manner.

In particular embodiments, social-networking system 802 may use avariety of factors to calculate a coefficient. These factors mayinclude, for example, user actions, types of relationships betweenobjects, location information, other suitable factors, or anycombination thereof. In particular embodiments, different factors may beweighted differently when calculating the coefficient. The weights foreach factor may be static or the weights may change according to, forexample, the user, the type of relationship, the type of action, theuser's location, and so forth. Ratings for the factors may be combinedaccording to their weights to determine an overall coefficient for theuser. As an example and not by way of limitation, particular useractions may be assigned both a rating and a weight while a relationshipassociated with the particular user action is assigned a rating and acorrelating weight (e.g., so the weights total 100%). To calculate thecoefficient of a user towards a particular object, the rating assignedto the user's actions may comprise, for example, 60% of the overallcoefficient, while the relationship between the user and the object maycomprise 40% of the overall coefficient. In particular embodiments, thesocial-networking system 802 may consider a variety of variables whendetermining weights for various factors used to calculate a coefficient,such as, for example, the time since information was accessed, decayfactors, frequency of access, relationship to information orrelationship to the object about which information was accessed,relationship to social-graph entities connected to the object, short- orlong-term averages of user actions, user feedback, other suitablevariables, or any combination thereof. As an example and not by way oflimitation, a coefficient may include a decay factor that causes thestrength of the signal provided by particular actions to decay withtime, such that more recent actions are more relevant when calculatingthe coefficient. The ratings and weights may be continuously updatedbased on continued tracking of the actions upon which the coefficient isbased. Any type of process or algorithm may be employed for assigning,combining, averaging, and so forth the ratings for each factor and theweights assigned to the factors. In particular embodiments,social-networking system 802 may determine coefficients usingmachine-learning algorithms trained on historical actions and past userresponses, or data farmed from users by exposing them to various optionsand measuring responses. Although this disclosure describes calculatingcoefficients in a particular manner, this disclosure contemplatescalculating coefficients in any suitable manner.

In particular embodiments, social-networking system 802 may calculate acoefficient based on a user's actions. Social-networking system 802 maymonitor such actions on the online social network, on a third-partysystem 808, on other suitable systems, or any combination thereof. Anysuitable type of user actions may be tracked or monitored. Typical useractions include viewing profile pages, creating or posting content,interacting with content, joining groups, listing and confirmingattendance at events, checking-in at locations, liking particular pages,creating pages, and performing other tasks that facilitate socialaction. In particular embodiments, social-networking system 802 maycalculate a coefficient based on the user's actions with particulartypes of content. The content may be associated with the online socialnetwork, a third-party system 808, or another suitable system. Thecontent may include users, profile pages, posts, news stories,headlines, instant messages, chat room conversations, emails,advertisements, pictures, video, music, other suitable objects, or anycombination thereof. Social-networking system 802 may analyze a user'sactions to determine whether one or more of the actions indicate anaffinity for subject matter, content, other users, and so forth. As anexample and not by way of limitation, if a user may make frequentlyposts content related to “coffee” or variants thereof, social-networkingsystem 802 may determine the user has a high coefficient with respect tothe concept “coffee”. Particular actions or types of actions may beassigned a higher weight and/or rating than other actions, which mayaffect the overall calculated coefficient. As an example and not by wayof limitation, if a first user emails a second user, the weight or therating for the action may be higher than if the first user simply viewsthe user-profile page for the second user.

In particular embodiments, social-networking system 802 may calculate acoefficient based on the type of relationship between particularobjects. Referencing the social graph 900, social-networking system 802may analyze the number and/or type of edges 906 connecting particularuser nodes 902 and concept nodes 904 when calculating a coefficient. Asan example and not by way of limitation, user nodes 902 that areconnected by a spouse-type edge (representing that the two users aremarried) may be assigned a higher coefficient than a user nodes 902 thatare connected by a friend-type edge. In other words, depending upon theweights assigned to the actions and relationships for the particularuser, the overall affinity may be determined to be higher for contentabout the user's spouse than for content about the user's friend. Inparticular embodiments, the relationships a user has with another objectmay affect the weights and/or the ratings of the user's actions withrespect to calculating the coefficient for that object. As an exampleand not by way of limitation, if a user is tagged in first photo, butmerely likes a second photo, social-networking system 802 may determinethat the user has a higher coefficient with respect to the first photothan the second photo because having a tagged-in-type relationship withcontent may be assigned a higher weight and/or rating than having alike-type relationship with content. In particular embodiments,social-networking system 802 may calculate a coefficient for a firstuser based on the relationship one or more second users have with aparticular object. In other words, the connections and coefficientsother users have with an object may affect the first user's coefficientfor the object. As an example and not by way of limitation, if a firstuser is connected to or has a high coefficient for one or more secondusers, and those second users are connected to or have a highcoefficient for a particular object, social-networking system 802 maydetermine that the first user should also have a relatively highcoefficient for the particular object. In particular embodiments, thecoefficient may be based on the degree of separation between particularobjects. Degree of separation between any two nodes is defined as theminimum number of hops required to traverse the social graph from onenode to the other. A degree of separation between two nodes can beconsidered a measure of relatedness between the users or the conceptsrepresented by the two nodes in the social graph. For example, two usershaving user nodes that are directly connected by an edge (i.e., arefirst-degree nodes) may be described as “connected users” or “friends.”Similarly, two users having user nodes that are connected only throughanother user node (i.e., are second-degree nodes) may be described as“friends of friends.” The lower coefficient may represent the decreasinglikelihood that the first user will share an interest in content objectsof the user that is indirectly connected to the first user in the socialgraph 900. As an example and not by way of limitation, social-graphentities that are closer in the social graph 900 (i.e., fewer degrees ofseparation) may have a higher coefficient than entities that are furtherapart in the social graph 900.

In particular embodiments, social-networking system 802 may calculate acoefficient based on location information. Objects that aregeographically closer to each other may be considered to be morerelated, or of more interest, to each other than more distant objects.In particular embodiments, the coefficient of a user towards aparticular object may be based on the proximity of the object's locationto a current location associated with the user (or the location of aclient device 806 of the user). A first user may be more interested inother users or concepts that are closer to the first user. As an exampleand not by way of limitation, if a user is one mile from an airport andtwo miles from a gas station, social-networking system 802 may determinethat the user has a higher coefficient for the airport than the gasstation based on the proximity of the airport to the user.

In particular embodiments, social-networking system 802 may performparticular actions with respect to a user based on coefficientinformation. Coefficients may be used to predict whether a user willperform a particular action based on the user's interest in the action.A coefficient may be used when generating or presenting any type ofobjects to a user, such as advertisements, search results, news stories,media, messages, notifications, or other suitable objects. Thecoefficient may also be utilized to rank and order such objects, asappropriate. In this way, social-networking system 802 may provideinformation that is relevant to user's interests and currentcircumstances, increasing the likelihood that they will find suchinformation of interest. In particular embodiments, social-networkingsystem 802 may generate content based on coefficient information.Content objects may be provided or selected based on coefficientsspecific to a user. As an example and not by way of limitation, thecoefficient may be used to generate media for the user, where the usermay be presented with media for which the user has a high overallcoefficient with respect to the media object. As another example and notby way of limitation, the coefficient may be used to generateadvertisements for the user, where the user may be presented withadvertisements for which the user has a high overall coefficient withrespect to the advertised object. In particular embodiments,social-networking system 802 may generate search results based oncoefficient information. Search results for a particular user may bescored or ranked based on the coefficient associated with the searchresults with respect to the querying user. As an example and not by wayof limitation, search results corresponding to objects with highercoefficients may be ranked higher on a search-results page than resultscorresponding to objects having lower coefficients.

In particular embodiments, social-networking system 802 may calculate acoefficient in response to a request for a coefficient from a particularsystem or process. To predict the likely actions a user may take (or maybe the subject of) in a given situation, any process may request acalculated coefficient for a user. The request may also include a set ofweights to use for various factors used to calculate the coefficient.This request may come from a process running on the online socialnetwork, from a third-party system 808 (e.g., via an API or othercommunication channel), or from another suitable system. In response tothe request, social-networking system 802 may calculate the coefficient(or access the coefficient information if it has previously beencalculated and stored). In particular embodiments, social-networkingsystem 802 may measure an affinity with respect to a particular process.Different processes (both internal and external to the online socialnetwork) may request a coefficient for a particular object or set ofobjects. Social-networking system 802 may provide a measure of affinitythat is relevant to the particular process that requested the measure ofaffinity. In this way, each process receives a measure of affinity thatis tailored for the different context in which the process will use themeasure of affinity.

In connection with social-graph affinity and affinity coefficients,particular embodiments may utilize one or more systems, components,elements, functions, methods, operations, or steps disclosed in U.S.patent application Ser. No. 11/503,093, filed 11 Aug. 2006, U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 12/977,027, filed 22 Dec. 2010, U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 12/978,265, filed 23 Dec. 2010, and U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 13/632,869, field 1 Oct. 2012, each of which isincorporated by reference in their entirety.

In particular embodiments, one or more of the content objects of theonline social network may be associated with a privacy setting. Theprivacy settings (or “access settings”) for an object may be stored inany suitable manner, such as, for example, in association with theobject, in an index on an authorization server, in another suitablemanner, or any combination thereof. A privacy setting of an object mayspecify how the object (or particular information associated with anobject) can be accessed (e.g., viewed or shared) using the online socialnetwork. Where the privacy settings for an object allow a particularuser to access that object, the object may be described as being“visible” with respect to that user. As an example and not by way oflimitation, a user of the online social network may specify privacysettings for a user-profile page identify a set of users that may accessthe work experience information on the user-profile page, thus excludingother users from accessing the information. In particular embodiments,the privacy settings may specify a “blocked list” of users that shouldnot be allowed to access certain information associated with the object.In other words, the blocked list may specify one or more users orentities for which an object is not visible. As an example and not byway of limitation, a user may specify a set of users that may not accessphotos albums associated with the user, thus excluding those users fromaccessing the photo albums (while also possibly allowing certain usersnot within the set of users to access the photo albums). In particularembodiments, privacy settings may be associated with particularsocial-graph elements. Privacy settings of a social-graph element, suchas a node or an edge, may specify how the social-graph element,information associated with the social-graph element, or content objectsassociated with the social-graph element can be accessed using theonline social network. As an example and not by way of limitation, aparticular concept node 904 corresponding to a particular photo may havea privacy setting specifying that the photo may only be accessed byusers tagged in the photo and their friends. In particular embodiments,privacy settings may allow users to opt in or opt out of having theiractions logged by social-networking system 802 or shared with othersystems (e.g., third-party system 808). In particular embodiments, theprivacy settings associated with an object may specify any suitablegranularity of permitted access or denial of access. As an example andnot by way of limitation, access or denial of access may be specifiedfor particular users (e.g., only me, my roommates, and my boss), userswithin a particular degrees-of-separation (e.g., friends, orfriends-of-friends), user groups (e.g., the gaming club, my family),user networks (e.g., employees of particular employers, students oralumni of particular university), all users (“public”), no users(“private”), users of third-party systems 808, particular applications(e.g., third-party applications, external websites), other suitableusers or entities, or any combination thereof. Although this disclosuredescribes using particular privacy settings in a particular manner, thisdisclosure contemplates using any suitable privacy settings in anysuitable manner.

In particular embodiments, one or more servers may beauthorization/privacy servers for enforcing privacy settings. Inresponse to a request from a user (or other entity) for a particularobject stored in a data store, social-networking system 802 may send arequest to the data store for the object. The request may identify theuser associated with the request and may only be sent to the user (or aclient device 806 of the user) if the authorization server determinesthat the user is authorized to access the object based on the privacysettings associated with the object. If the requesting user is notauthorized to access the object, the authorization server may preventthe requested object from being retrieved from the data store, or mayprevent the requested object from be sent to the user. In the searchquery context, an object may only be generated as a search result if thequerying user is authorized to access the object. In other words, theobject must have a visibility that is visible to the querying user. Ifthe object has a visibility that is not visible to the user, the objectmay be excluded from the search results. Although this disclosuredescribes enforcing privacy settings in a particular manner, thisdisclosure contemplates enforcing privacy settings in any suitablemanner.

The foregoing specification is described with reference to specificexemplary embodiments thereof. Various embodiments and aspects of thedisclosure are described with reference to details discussed herein, andthe accompanying drawings illustrate the various embodiments. Thedescription above and drawings are illustrative and are not to beconstrued as limiting. Numerous specific details are described toprovide a thorough understanding of various embodiments. Additional oralternative embodiments may be embodied in other specific forms withoutdeparting from its spirit or essential characteristics. The describedembodiments are to be considered in all respects only as illustrativeand not restrictive. The scope of the invention is, therefore, indicatedby the appended claims rather than by the foregoing description. Allchanges that come within the meaning and range of equivalency of theclaims are to be embraced within their scope.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: providing a graphical userinterface used to navigate a plurality of content items; detecting auser interaction with respect to the graphical user interface, the userinteraction having a first characteristic and a second characteristic;identifying, using at least one processor, a subset of content items ofthe plurality of content items based on the first characteristic of theuser interaction; determining a proximity factor for each content itemin the subset of content items, wherein a given proximity factor for agiven content item corresponds to a proximity of the given content itemto a target content item; adjusting the proximity factor for eachcontent item in the subset of content items based on the secondcharacteristic of the user interaction; determining, for each contentitem in the subset of content items, a score based on combining arelevance factor and the adjusted proximity factor for each content itemin the subset of content items; identifying, using the at least oneprocessor, a content item from the subset of content items based on thedetermined score for each content item in the subset of content items;and providing, within the graphical user interface, the identifiedcontent item.
 2. The method of claim 1 (as cited above), furthercomprising identifying a target content item based on the firstcharacteristic of the user interaction.
 3. The method of claim 2,further comprising identifying a proximity range relative to the targetcontent item, wherein the subset of content items include one or more ofthe plurality of content items located within the identified proximityrange.
 4. The method of claim 3, further comprising adjusting theproximity factor for each content item in the subset of content itemsbased on, the proximity of the content item in the subset of contentitems to the target content item.
 5. The method of claim 3, furthercomprising increasing the proximity range to include additional contentitems within the subset of content items upon determining that the userinteraction exceeds a user interaction threshold.
 6. The method of claim1, further comprising receiving the relevance factor associated witheach of the subset of content items from a system provider, wherein eachreceived relevance factor is predetermined by the system provider. 7.The method of claim 1, further comprising determining the proximityfactor for each content item in the subset of content items afteridentifying the subset of content items.
 8. The method of claim 1 (ascited above), further comprising favoring or disfavoring the relevancefactor for each content item in the subset of content items based on thefirst characteristic of the user interaction.
 9. The method of claim 8,further comprising: identifying a type of user interaction; and whereinthe favoring or disfavoring the relevance factor for each content itemin the subset of content items is based on a type of user interaction.10. A method comprising: providing a graphical user interface used tonavigate a plurality of content items; detecting a user interaction withrespect to the graphical user interface, the user interaction having afirst characteristic and a second characteristic; identifying, using atleast one processor, a target content item from the plurality of contentitems based on the first characteristic of the user interaction;determining a proximity factor for one or more content items within aproximity range relative to the target content item, wherein a givenproximity factor for a given content item corresponds to a proximity ofthe given content item to the target content item; adjusting theproximity factor for each content item in the subset of content itemsbased on the second characteristic of the user interaction; determininga score for each of one or more content items within a proximity rangerelative to the target content item, the score based on a relevancefactor associated with each of the one or more content items and aproximity factor associated with each of the one or more content items;identifying, using the at least one processor, a content item from theone or more content items based on the score for each of the one or morecontent items; and providing the identified content item to the userwithin the graphical user interface.
 11. The method of claim 10, whereindetermining the score for one or more content items within the proximityrange to the target content item further comprises assigning a firstweight to the relevance factor and a second weight to the proximityfactor.
 12. The method of claim 11 (as cited above), further comprisingdetermining the first weight and the second weight based on the secondcharacteristic of the user interaction.
 13. The method of claim 12 (ascited above), further comprising determining whether the secondcharacteristic of the user interaction meets or exceeds a userinteraction threshold.
 14. The method of claim 13 (as cited above),further comprising reducing the second weight assigned to the proximityfactor when the second characteristic of the user interaction meets orexceeds the user interaction threshold.
 15. The method of claim 14 (ascited above), further comprising increasing the number of content itemswithin the proximity range when the second characteristic of the userinteraction meets or exceeds the user interaction threshold.
 16. Themethod of claim 15 (as cited above), further comprising increasing therelevance factor of an advertisement content item within the one or morecontent items when the second characteristic of the user interactionmeets or exceeds the user interaction threshold.
 17. The method of claim16, further comprising selecting the advertisement content item as theidentified content item based on increasing the relevance factor of theadvertisement content item and reducing the proximity factor for each ofthe one or more content items.
 18. The method of claim 13 (as citedabove), further comprising decreasing proximity factor to zero when thesecond characteristic of the user interaction meets or exceeds a maximumuser interaction threshold.
 19. The method of claim 18, furthercomprising: identifying a type of the user interaction; and activating,based on the type of the user interaction, an additional factor to beused in place of the proximity factor when determining the score foreach of the one or more content items.
 20. A mobile device, comprising:at least one processor; at least one non-transitory computer readablestorage medium storing instructions thereon that, when executed by theat least one processor, cause the mobile device to: provide a graphicaluser interface used to navigate a plurality of content items; detect auser interaction with respect to the graphical user interface, the userinteraction having a first characteristic and a second characteristic;identify a subset of content items of the plurality of content itemsbased on the first characteristic of the user interaction; determine aproximity factor for each content item in the subset of content items,wherein a given proximity factor for a given content item corresponds toa proximity of the given content item to a target content item; adjustthe proximity factor for each content item in the subset of contentitems based on the second characteristic of the user interaction;determine, for each content item in the subset of content items, a scorebased on combining a relevance factor and the adjusted proximity factorfor each content item in the subset of content items; identify a contentitem from the subset of content items based on the determined score foreach content item in the subset of content items; and provide, withinthe graphical user interface, the identified content item.